The pianist as orator

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Beethoven was celebrated as a master performer and admired for his innovative ideas, yet his playing style on the Viennese fortepiano differed significantly from the articulate approaches of Haydn and Mozart. This raises questions about his place in musical rhetoric: did his style signify the end of one language and the beginning of another, or was it the emergence of a new dialect? George Barth explores Beethoven's impact on the evolution of keyboard style during the decline of the rhetorical tradition. Focusing on Beethoven's solo and chamber works, Barth critiques musical timekeeping and eighteenth-century perspectives on music's character, emphasizing musicians who shaped Beethoven's legacy. He highlights the writings of Johann Mattheson, who linked gesture to musical rhetoric; Emmanuel Bach, who liberated rhetorical theory from French rationalism; and Johann Philipp Kirnberger, who applied this theory at deeper musical levels. Barth also addresses the contentious debate over tempo and musical character among Beethoven's followers after his death, particularly the rivalry between Anton Schindler and Carl Czerny. This conflict, Barth argues, reveals Beethoven's greatest achievement: a musical language that harmonized the old with the new.