An annual of international Beethoven studies, Beethoven Forum promotes and sustains the high level of scholarship inspired by Beethoven’s extraordinary works. Volume 5 presents studies on Beethoven’s Fidelio, his piano sonatas, and his uses of form and dynamics, along with reviews of Theodor Adorno’s Beethoven’s Philosophie der Musik and of recent writings on the Ninth Symphony. The contributors are Michael C. Tusa, Lee Rothfarb, Miriam Sheer, Michael Spitzer, William Kinderman, Stephen Hinton, and Scott Burnham.

Glenn Stanley opens Beethoven Forum 6 with a consideration of the “piano sonata culture” of the late eighteenth century and how Beethoven’s sonatas influenced this culture. Lawrence Kramer explores the "Tempest" sonata and the way it exemplifies "one of the leading intellectual projects of the Enlightenment, the project of speculative anthropology or 'universal history.'" Elaine R. Sisman examines the "lyrical," "small-scale" sonatas of Beethoven’s middle period in relation to his renewed preoccupation with the idea of "fantasia." Nicholas Marston concludes the volume’s consideration of the piano sonatas with a study of the development of a musical idea in the "Hammerklavier" sonata. Birgit Lodes examines the relationship between the human and the divine as they are represented in the Gloria of Beethoven’s great mass, the Missa solemnis. In a second article on this late masterpiece, Norbert Gertsch describes a subscription copy of the Missa solemnis—a copy that Beethoven had corrected—and its significance for a future scholarly edition of the work. Maynard Solomon offers a commentary, transcription, and translation of a papal document concerning the marriage of Beethoven’s great-uncle Cornelius. In a review article, Nicholas Marston discusses the recent edition of the Landsberg 5 sketchbook and future prospects for sketchbook editions. Robert Levin concludes the volume with a review of Performing Beethoven, edited by Robin Stowell.

In "Deconstructing Periodization," Tia DeNora examines how historical depictions of Beethoven's work in late eighteenth-century Vienna. K. M. Knittel have tended to impose patterns rather than reveal them. When perceived through modern sociological and ethnographic methods, Beethoven's early career is neither as neat nor as evolutionary as often supposed. K. M. Knittel also looks critically at traditional assumptions in "Imitation, Individuality, and Illness: Behind Beethoven's Three Styles." Two of Beethoven's most beloved piano sonatas are placed in wider cultural contexts by Janet Schmalfeldt and Thomas Sipe. Schmalfeldt examines "Form as the Process of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and the 'Tempest' Sonata: and Sipe considers the critical reception of op. 57 in "Beethoven, Shakespeare, and the 'Appassionata'." Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is his most famous, sometimes, it seems, too famous to be heard afresh. But Richard Taruskin identifies a potential borrowing in "Something New about the Fifth." And, drawing on Beethoven's sketches, Alain Frogley demonstrates subtle connections between rhythmic patterns and tonal plan in" Beethoven's Struggle for Simplicity in the Sketches for the Third Movement of the Sixth Symphony." In "Florestan Reading Fidelio," Christopher Reynolds clarifies how Romantic composers trod the narrow path between emulating great composers and expressing themselves originally. Reynolds looks at Brahms and Wagner, among others, with special attention to Schumann's studies of Fidelio. In "Beethoven with or without Kunstgepräng': Metrical Ambiguity Reconsidered," . William Rothstein contributes a precise analysis of one of Beethoven's complex compositional techniques.

Collecting the best of international Beethoven studies, Beethoven Forum promotes and sustains the high level of scholarship inspired by Beethoven's extraordinary works.

The essays in this volume grew out of an international Beethoven conference held in honor of Lewis Lockwood at Harvard University in 1996. Michelle Fillion?s opening essay explores the Mass in C and its turn away from the ?heroic? style of the ?middle-period? works. In ?Beethoven and the Aesthetic State,? Karol Berger reflects on the manner in which the composer?s music often shifts back and forth between a ?real? and an ?imagined? world. William Drabkin examines the role of the cello part in Beethoven's late quartets, particularly in regard to the elusive parameter of texture. Richard Kramer?s reading of the song Resignation (1818) opens new perspectives on the idea of a ?late? style in the composer?s output. ø In ?Beethoven's ?Expressive? Markings,? Leo Treitler demonstrates how seemingly straightforward directions to performers about tempo, mood, or dynamics raise fundamental questions about the relationship between music and language. Michael C. Tusa reviews more than a century of attempts to relate form and content in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony and offers a new interpretation on the idea of the choral finale as a kind of four-movement symphony in its own right. Maynard Solomon?s essay on the ?Diabelli? variations argues that the theme itself, although simple, is by no means trivial and indeed is ?perfectly suited to unpacking issues of firstness and lastness and their interchangeability.? William Drabkin concludes the volume with a review essay on Beethoven: Interpretationen seiner Werke, edited by Albrecht Riethm_ller, Carl Dahlhaus, and Alexander Ringer.

The opening essay by James Webster, "Beethoven in Vienna, 1792-1802: Anø'Early' Period?", evaluates the critical tradition of dividing Beethoven?s career into three periods?early, middle, and late?and shows both their artificiality andøtheir implications, including a tendency to undervalue early works. J_rgen May?s essay "Beethoven and Prince Karl Lichnowsky," considers Beethoven?s relations with one of the first of his most important patrons. In "Beethoven before 1800: The Mozart Legacy," Lewis Lockwood examines Beethoven?s sketchbooks to describe how Beethoven composed with and against models from Mozart. Glenn Stanley's essay, "The 'wirklich gantz neue Mainer' and the Path to It: Beethoven's Variations for Piano, 1783-1802," surveys Beethoven?s sets of piano variations written in his first decade in Vienna and argues the importance of the variations in Beethoven's progress as a composer. In 'Pathos and the Pathätique," Elaine R. Sisman provides a historical and aesthetic analysis of one of Beethoven?s most popular piano sonatas. The composition of one of Beethoven's most popular violin sonatas, the "Spring" sonata is traced in the sketchbooks by Carl Schachter in "The Sketches of the Sonata for Piano and Violin, Op. 24." Nicholas Marston's "Stylistic Advance, Strategic Retreat: Beethoven's Sketches for the Finale,"øalso pays precise attention to Beethoven's sketches to discover how the composition of the Second Symphony illuminates Beethoven's work on an "underlying idea." In "Hybrid Themes: Toward a Refinement in the Classification of Classical Theme Types,"øWilliam E. Caplin defines "hybrid themes" and shows their variety in Beethoven?s early compositions. William Kinderman concludes the volume with a review article onøKlaus Kropfinger?s Wagner and Beethoven and its study of the "battle for Beethoven" that racked nineteenth-century European music.