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Rating: Trifles, pinzillacchere, as Totò used to say… trifles indeed, things of no importance. So how is it that the Titan of composers, naturally inclined to think and create on a grand scale, could amuse himself with such minutiae to the extent of dedicating no less than three opus numbers of his not vast catalog to them?
Well, first of all, the term "bagatelle", recently resurrected by our little ex-emperor during the public epistolary exchanges with his wife, fed to the gullible public ad nauseam, has a slightly different connotation in the musical field, still referring to a short, melodic composition not tied to a precise form, a kind of "fantasy" in miniature, so to speak. Bagatelles for harpsichord have been known since the times of Couperin, which are about a century older than those of Beethoven, who, from a terminological standpoint, invented nothing. Nonetheless, with his three collections of short piano pieces, Beethoven more or less unconsciously laid the groundwork for a rich and wonderful flowering of the genre, which would reach its peak in the Romantic period, especially thanks to Schumann and his many youthful albums with imaginative names (Carnaval, Papillons, Kreisleriana, etc.), brilliant sequences of brief piano episodes of limited duration but striking beauty and intensity.
The suspicion that these foundations, at least in part, were laid unconsciously arises from the prevailing hypothesis on the origin of these Bagatelles, particularly valid for Op. 33 and 119. They would be sketches of individual movements of larger works (mainly Piano Sonatas), deemed unsuitable for some reason and set aside, later rearranged into regular collections. This is quite surprising from a composer who is always depicted as being immersed in total chaos, constantly correcting and reworking his frenzied musical insights, fiercely fighting to fix these ideas on the staff in a way that satisfied him, and it seems he was not the kind to be easily satisfied, a fact that we selfish listeners can only rejoice over, in hindsight.
The last Bagatelles, Op. 126, also seem to be of similar origin, but in this case, it seems their sequence corresponds to a more organic plan that goes beyond mere collection. This impression is reinforced by the unmistakable style that they share, the absolutely original and "modern" style of the late Beethoven, the same as in the last Piano Sonatas and String Quartets. For all three collections, one can draw the literary parallel of a great novelist handling short stories (Thomas Mann, to name one): the synthesis of form certainly does not come at the expense of expressiveness, which in some cases even seems concentrated.
Such is the case with the most famous Bagatelle of all, "Für Elise", actually dedicated to a certain Theresa (Beethoven's handwriting was comparable to that of many of our doctors in prescriptions, hence the confusion). Three minutes, practically a little song, but no words needed. The music speaks for itself, with the immense tenderness of a shy person’s declaration of love, a sweet stammering of alternating notes, then with a central surge that catapults us into full Romanticism (Brahms’ musical love tribulations are just around the corner) and then returns to the obsessive thought of the beloved, marked by the hypnotic initial theme. The most famous Bagatelle is an isolated fragment, marked with WoO 59, where WoO is an acronym for three German words roughly equivalent to "work without opus number".
All 24 Bagatelles deserve a mention, but for reasons of space, let’s limit ourselves to the most notable ones. Among the 7 Bagatelles of Op. 33, also more or less of the "song-like" duration of 3-4 minutes, we highlight No. 1 "Andante grazioso quasi Allegretto", whose description speaks for itself, especially if we emphasize the word "grazioso"; No. 2 "Scherzo", truly syncopated and unpredictable like the Scherzi of certain Sonatas; No. 4 "Andante", which maintains the light simplicity, distinctly Mozartian, typical of many of Beethoven's early works; No. 7 "Presto", with its restlessness of its frenetic attack that seems to anticipate that of the famous "Waldstein" Sonata, but then resolves in a brilliant and sudden shimmering of notes.
The most concise are the 11 Bagatelles Op. 119, some even well under a minute. Slightly more elaborate is only No. 1 "Allegretto", so tenderly melancholic it seems more at home in the previous collection, which could also be said of the simpler No. 4 "Andante cantabile"; in the barely two minutes of No. 6 "Andante" is concentrated an incredible variety of themes; No. 7 "Allegro ma non troppo", with its triumph of trills, ends in a whirlwind crescendo; No. 10 "Allegramente" is a firework of clear and colored notes.
With the 6 Bagatelles Op. 126, we return to the dimensions of the youthful collection (3-4 minutes) but with the well-known sobriety of late Beethoven. No. 2 "Allegro" alternates a restless initial theme with a sustained but far more melodic one; No. 3 "Andante cantabile e grazioso" reiterates in miniature the rarefied simplicity and trills of the sublime "Arietta" from Sonata Op. 111; No. 4 "Presto" has a martial, almost menacing attack, but in the end, all this fervor vanishes into reflections of delicate notes; No. 5 "Quasi Allegretto" seems a reminiscence of the idyllic and somewhat naive melodies of young Beethoven, filtered through the calm resignation and the sense of "farewell" of a composer who, with this Op. 126, places the last stone on the magnificent edifice of his piano work, founded on the beauty of 32 Piano Sonatas.
Among active pianists, Alfred Brendel is renowned particularly for his interpretations of Beethoven, a composer to whom he has always given great prominence in his concerts. This preference is probably not unrelated to his solid and unfussy technique, consisting of firm and well-marked notes. In any case, this recording of the Bagatelles is yet another confirmation of what Brendel can express when he plays his ideal composer, and it is no less impeccable than those, truly must-haves, of the Sonatas. Enjoy listening.
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