I think you over-estimate cellists' absolute fidelity to the written instruction - and also the likelihood of their reading the critical notes... But that's your principle and I still use your editions with great pleasure! (I once chided Yo-Yo Ma for not using your Barenreiter Beethoven, and he replied that Barenreiter Schubert editions had put him off. I couldn't argue with that!)

For me, this is an exception; but I agree with the general rule.

Agh! I just can't let this pass. To anyone who bothers to read this reply, I should explain that Jonathan and I are great friends who love to argue! (And one of us rarely convinces the other.) We don't usually do it in public, however.. But this example - which I had to look up, op 8 being the only string trio of Beethoven's that I haven't played - is completely wrong, methinks. The second instance you quote - 62 et seq - is a pattern that changes over four bars, completely different from the simple 'arpeggio' passage at 34. In fact, if you look at 66, there is the usual sign for a mere arpeggiated chord - the wiggly line; which to me proves that the marking 'arpeggio' at 34 means something else - ie a repeated pattern of shorter notes to accompany the violin line.

@@stevenisserlis7742 Yes I know there is the usual arpeggiando sign in 66 - but that's only a crotchet, so you can spread it in the normal way (quickly) and it's finished. This one is different.

@@sashadelmar7531 Yes, which is why you need the pattern at bar 34 to continue through the bar... as CPE Bach so clearly states, in a book which we know Beethoven used as a teaching tool...

No, I don't think it sounds awful, by any means. But there's not much time and the danger is that it might sound garbled. It's up the performers, however...

Interesting - thanks.

@@minkyukim0204 Yes that is an extraordinary, and extremely rare (maybe unique?) exception. What was he thinking when he wrote that, when he hadn't written decresc. for more than ten years? I wonder whether it's something to do with the fact that it's over such a tiny stretch of music, only one beat - we'd have rather expected him to write a hairpin. But he didn't. Yes there are always puzzles and we will never know everything! (Compare 12 bars later, where a similarly brief dimin. goes to p - so, challenge: can you find an example of dimin. over a tiny stretch, that doesn't go to p or pp, but reverses direction like that bar 52 does? Try that, maybe?)

Hmmm...Fp does NOT always imply forte then piano. There are so many instances of a forte passage with an fp, and then a couple of bard (or even notes) later, a piano - showing that the forte has remained (though I agree that a fp implies at least something of a release, and CAN imply piano). I do think there's a difference of nature between the two, but that it is different for different composers, and even, in Beethoven's case, in different periods of the same composer.

@@stevenisserlis7742 Well. I didn't quite say "forte then piano", but let that pass. No, in Beethoven, after fp the forte cannot possibly have remained - find me one and I'll explain it!

Yes, sorry - that is a wonderful musical altercation!

Interesting, thanks. Yes, I must have read your wise words on the subject, which made me wary of the legend.

Excellently put! (I'd say that a similar principle applies when B puts the word 'arpeggio'...)

Many thanks, Jonathan!

Yes! In the 3rd movement of op 110, for instance (shown clearly in the manuscript). And Czerny is merely explaining the execution, presumably as explained to him by his teacher, Beethoven. As I said, though, I myself am on shaky ground when doing the same thing on the cello; there's no evidence that he intended this (though there's no manuscript, either). Just that I find myself unable NOT to respond to the piano's execution of the figure, before the cello enters. I could easily be wrong, though - I have to admit it...

PS: Leopold Mozart, writing about syncopated notes, advises that the second phalf of the note - ie the note on the main beat 'should be distinguished...by an after-pressure of the bow'. So there is SOME evidence...

@@stevenisserlis7742 Well, there you have SOME evidence... In any case, I would try to avoid going to a concert where is an orchestra playing the syncopation in that way. If it happens that we are both in that concert, you stay and I go. 😏 P. S. : I wonder how the Große Fuge would sound played in that way. 🤔

@@stevenisserlis7742 Yes, you're right. In the Adagio ma non troppo (Recitative - Adagio) of Op. 110 there is the same type of fingering. The next time I have to play Op. 69, I'll give it a try... If my wife lets me... 🙄 😏

@@fernandogentile23 It ENTIRELY depends how it's done. Nothing to do with the ungainly swells that were an unfortunate feature of bad baroque performances some years ago - gone now, thankfully. And there are such markings (ie resounded notes, not swells) for strings in Beethoven...

Well, it's a lyrical passage anyway; but later composers would never w=have written sf here, I'm sure.

Well, as I said, it's unnatural for me not to respond to the piano; but I can certainly never prove that I'm right - the evidence is against me. But pianos can never hold long notes - why doesn't he write that fingering far more often? And Czerny does very definitely state that the note should be resounded - he was Beethoven's student, after all...

@@stevenisserlis7742 Czerny was not always to be trusted (there is a long list of his assertions that are manifestly wrong) but here he is basically sound. Only the word "resounded" is perhaps capable of much latitude in interpretation. But that's the piano - there we all broadly agree! It's the cello we're discussing, and Czerny doesn't say anything about the cello following suit.

(As I hope I explained, quoting you?)

@@stevenisserlis7742 Yes, as I replied before (but someone deleted my reply?): yes, quite perfect, thank you!

@@minkyukim0204 Yes but I'm sorry, Barry is wrong. I battled this out with him back in 2005. The only evidence he has to base his standpoint on is (are) the very early WoO 36, and op.31 no.1. WoO 36: Beethoven had not yet settled on his language of notation. Yes these very early works are different in many ways. Please see my new edition of the early WoO 47 sonatas - there, too, he uses Punkte as well as Striche. But in anything from op.1 on: No. Op.31 no.1: we have no autograph, so it's not evidence. Printed editions were totally arbitrary in their use of Punkte and Striche. As I said to Barry in my letter of 23 November 2005: "You say op.31 no.1 is a good example of consistency between Punkte and Striche, yet you and I both possess the facsimile of Beethoven's autograph of op.30 no.3 (because I gave it to you), and that's entirely Striche. I cannot bring myself to believe a printed edition (op.31) in preference to an autograph (op.30) of the same time. In case you think you find Punkte in op.30 no.3: folio 4v bar 1 violin n.4-6: he must mean Striche, cf. n.1-3 same page, bar 3 piano n.1-3 same, cf. n.4-6 folio 15v violin ditto ditto, cf. folio 14v, where the first note, at least, is clearly a Strich, and folio 17v bars 7-8, where the first 3 notes of the theme are clearly Striche. folio 18v bars 8-9, 11 violin, ditto ditto, cf. folio 19r, last 2 bars. These are all patently intended to be the same symbol, even if some are drawn shorter than others." If ever you are looking at staccato in Beethoven's handwriting, and you think you're seeing Punkte, please remember that he was human - he was temperamental and it is unreasonable to expect him to write all his Striche the same length! The most splendid example I know, which demonstrates conclusively that short Striche are not Punkte, but are just careless Striche (but hang on: not careless - why should he take more trouble to notate them more precisely long, when he assumed the copyist would understand, and the copyist *did* understand!), are in the slow movement of the Pastoral Symphony. Look at that autograph (it's page 15 of the slow movement), in bars 45-46. Bassoon and first violins are playing the identical music in octaves. Violins with enormous great long Striche, but in the bassoon they're so short that if you wanted to be really literal you could insist they're Punkte - but you see, they can't possibly be. And look at the variation in the length of the Striche in the violins! This is only reflecting his mood at the time he wrote those marks on the paper - there's nothing subtle to be deduced, concluded or argued here. Enjoy looking at that page - I love it!

@@minkyukim0204 Ach ach ach yes of course I have his "refutation", but then I have to give you also my refutation of his refutation, and so it continues. I have to type here all over again, a correspondence which lasted until, well, at least June 2006. OK: here goes: Barry to me, 15 December 2005: "I had a look at op.30 no.3 regarding the staccatos. On f.4v I think they're all dashes, though one or two look a bit like dots. The next batch (ff.15v and 17v) is less clear, however, and some could be interpreted as dots. [Hang on: I might be in trouble here - are his letters not protected by copyright? - am I permitted to publicise his letters here freely? I'm a bit worried about this.] I think I'd better skip his actual words for fear of maybe being sued - except only to say that his last sentence says "once one has found a single unmistakable dot, the whole edifice of the no-dot theory collapses". But you see this is fallacious, on two grounds: 1) any composer, writing quickly, can write a staccato which you can then pounce on, declaring "ah! here is an unmistakable dot!" to which he will reply "for goodness sake give me a break, I was writing quickly" - and 2) Barry says "and there are others in WoO 36..." to which I have already replied (WoO 36 is too early to be cited as the definitive notation of the mature Beethoven). My next reply (16 January 2006) says: "Sorry, I'm not convinced. If bars 180-3 (this is back to f.18v) is Punkte, then presumably you'd say 185 Violin is also Punkte, but it can't be - look at 188 LH, 189-90 violin. I still insist Beethoven meant Striche throughout, but sometimes when he's writing (and therefore thinking) in piano, he writes them small, resembling dots. Barry's reply to that (9 May 2006) says "do have a look at WoO 36 if you can", and repeats the point about "once one has found a single dot..." - and both of those points I have already answered. So (finally!) I replied on 16 June 2006: In Berlin I obviously looked at WoO 36. And yes, I see what you mean. It is almost possible to make an edition in which you make the distinction consistently. This letter goes on for half a page, but the point is (a) it's difficult to make an edition of WoO 36 because there are so many inconsistencies - but not impossible. But the main point is (b) that this piece is too early to base anything lasting on; by 1800 Beethoven has sorted himself out, and got rid of these "rogue" Punkte; already by 1801 he was beginning to insist on this being a Strich and *not* a Punkt (proofs of Symphony No.1). Hope that helps - have you managed to find that page of the Pastoral Symphony? It really is a good example, helping to clear the air of all the guff people talk about this really very minor issue. When is a Punkt not a Punkt? Let's get back to the music! Best wishes

That I cannot feel musically at all; the mf for me must start with the new phrase. But that's just instinct, not fact.

@@stevenisserlis7742Entirely agree: mf must start with the new phrase! And for me, the new phrase starts at the beginning of that bar - had it not been so (as I said), there would be a quaver rest before the G.

@@sashadelmar7531 We must agree to differ there...

I'm waiting for Bob Levin to read this... I agree that the late sonatas are so very concentrated that any embellishments are superfluous; but in the early, virtuosic sonatas, to proclaim that Beethoven would never have added ornamentation of any sort is beyond any sort of certainty. I'm pretty sure that he would have - biut again, I wasn't there, so can't prove it. Funny that you should quote that op 16 story; I've often used the same example when pleading with Bob Levin to tone down his flights of fancy a bit - to which he invariably replies with the story of Beethoven embracing Bridgetower after the latter played a highly embellished version of the violin part of the Kreutzer sonata. It HAS to remain an open question - but I cannot believe that embellishments suddenly cease in 1770 or so...

@@stevenisserlis7742 No of course they didn't "suddenly cease in 1770 or so". But around that time they're only appropriate in the music of second-rate composers, and I suppose they must have gradually ceased between around 1800 and 1830.

@@sashadelmar7531 Not sure about that. They feel (to me) thoroughly appropriate in much Haydn and Mozart - and they persist much later, Liszt being famous for his embellishments...

@@stevenisserlis7742 I'll obtain an authoritative answer about Liszt in due course. But I'd say that if you're Liszt you can do anything you like - but that doesn't mean composers in 1840/50/60 were in general happy for the notes they wrote to be embellished by random performers. Nor that they would have expected it. Liszt would surely have been very much the exception. Yes if you're very clever (as of course Bob Levin is, perhaps our supreme master in this field) you can get away with adding twiddles in some Haydn and occasionally in Mozart - but not in his most sublime works (such as, notably, the Clarinet Quintet).

Yes I now have the answer to the point about Liszt, from the foremost Liszt expert in the country. The question was this: yes of course Liszt was a virtuoso embellisher; but did he go so far as to embellish the printed music of the great composers? Answer: yes he did a little when he was young and foolish, drawing the ire of Mendelssohn who was present when Liszt added in the recap of a Beethoven (or Weber, perhaps) chamber piece 3rds, 6ths, 8ves, 10ths and so on (see letter from Liszt to the Comtesse d'Agoult). But he later changed his mind, and became an absolute stickler for the printed text, and never allowed his students any leeway. Even in those few places in his own music where in the original version he had allowed for ad lib cadenzas (especially the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 and Un Sospiro), he instead wrote out specific cadenzas himself, and most editions since his lifetime carry these. The only cadenza by someone else that he ever sanctioned for his own music was d'Albert's for the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2.