Was Beethoven innovative or just disorganized?

You obviously have not seen any reproductions of some of Stravinsky's sketches or work sheets. Bits of ideas on manuscript paper, scissored out, taped on another sheet with other isolated bits taped on.... they almost look like a collage!

You are mistaking a radical new order (for the era) as being an accident of a disorganized artist. Beethoven, apart from all the psychological hype (the first to have a sort of 'cult of' grow up around him) is certainly known and idolized as a master organizer and strategist. This should be appreciated within the context that he was the sole inventor and had no models anywhere near to the type of structures he made.

Some Beethoven sketches reveal a composer trying numbers of variants of a four-note theme, doggedly chiseling out a shape until he knew those four notes would yield to the ensuing variants that would make up a symphonic movement. This indicates, to me anyway, a genius who just would not stop until he knew he had gotten it 'right.'

That either composer worked this way, and it is not revealed in the music itself, to me is a proof of not only genius, the highest integrity and great craft. It also demonstrates how very dedicated and hard-working both these great composers were.

best regards, p.b.

You’ve already been given two excellent replies that both deserve a best answer. But I’ll try to explain the creative process in layman’s terms by example:

I know a guy, a serious writer and an equally serious artist (both of which some have said he is highly gifted at) who also works for a living to pay his bills. Which means that the time that he can contribute to either writing or painting is both precious and limited. Which means that this time is spent doing what he believes is really important. Which means that laundry, dusting the furniture, catching up on e-mails, worrying about which clothes to ware of what some celebrity is doing or what television show is on or how neat his penmanship is is way, way down his list of priorities.

I would imagine that how poorly Beethoven wrote is just as understandable as how poorly Albert Einstein’s penmanship was or Stephen Hawkin’s penmanship is.

Beethoven saved his ‘organization’ (the focus on his creative work) for what really mattered to him.

An example of Ludwig's innovation.

Classical composers such as Mozart or Haydn, whose conception of melody remained pretty much rooted in what could be sung, could never have written anything like the apocalyptic opening of the Fifth Symphony with it's non-melodic rhythmic figures.

The idea would be antithetical to them.

There are few more influential Symphonies than this, the first true occurrence also I believe of the Cyclic form (in a Symphony) whereby the opening motif is heard in all four movements from the tempestuous dark beginning journeying onward to final triumph and light.

fare-thee-well

As much as I'd like to get Mr. Beethoven on the couch for a little analysis, he'd be happier at my piano, and wouldn't that just be awesome?! =) Seriously, good question; makes me think a little better of my disorganized mind. I can imagine the genius and passion in the man who created such a body of work. Like a hungry fire feeding, one of his inspirations could be a torrid, and maybe messy, affair to witness!

Afraid there's very little that I could add to the three very well thought-out and presented expositions you've already received.

The only thing perhaps is that the concept of organization, could be likened to that of beauty: it's all in the eyes of the beholder.

Each of our minds are uniquely different; and we "put things together", differently - in our own, individual, idiosyncratic methodologies. Ones methodology, may appear to another as madness(and vice versa).

Alberich