Dmitri N Smirnov

The Anatomy of Theme in Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Dmitri N Smirnov

"It is impossible to fully understand any composition that belongs to any epoch, either before or after Beethoven, if you do not proceed from Beethoven. [...] Only at the level that form had reached in the music of Beethoven could this form [...] reveal something which would unite the music before Beethoven with the music of today." This quote from Philip Herschkowitz (student of Alban Berg and Anton Webern and teacher of Dmitri Smirnov) forms the basis of Smirnov's study "The anatomy of theme in Beethoven's piano sonatas", Smirnov, himself a composer and musicologist from Russia, presents a "strong and clear definition" of the subject term based on this outdated and reserved for lovers of Beethoven, which in his opinion has so far been characterized by misunderstandings and contradictions. As with Berg, Webern and Herschkowitz, Smirnov's analytical methodology is based on Schoenberg. (Jan Wedekind ) This book investigates the anatomy of Theme-the foremost part of a musical organism, aiming to set out the principles of a strong and clear definition of this basic music term, and also to develop a detailed theory of its wider implications. It presents examination of Beethoven's piano sonatas based on the post-Webernian approach to musical form and in particular on the principles of the teaching of Philip Herschkowitz (1906-1989), one of the most important pupils of Alban Berg and Anton Webern. It includes a lot of references to Herschkowitz's works as well as a translation of his important essay to this particular subject: "Webern and His Teaching". It also uses some new methods of analysis, and includes a complete catalog of every theme found within the sonatas, with classification of more than 500 themes according to their intervallic typology.