[Smt-talk] Beethoven's inner ear

[Martin Braun]

Eytan Agmon wrote:

> In Beethoven’s case, I have always assumed that the scores he produced are testimony to what he heard in his “inner ear.”

Yes, most would have similar assumptions. It is more complicated, though. Beethoven, like most composers, used rules while composing. Analysis of the scores shows this. Analysis of Beethoven’s scores from different times also shows that most rules were the same or similar across the second half of his lifetime. So, when he wrote down notes after having lost his normal hearing, how many of his decisions were based on auditory imagination and how many were based on the application of rules?

The ratio might have been 20/80, 10/90, or 2/98. We have no way of knowing.

Martin Braun
Neuroscience of Music
S-66492 Värmskog
Sweden
http://www.neuroscience-of-music.se/index.htm
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