Take as a simple proposition the major scale. We all learn it as if it were a given.
What if it isn't so simple? What if Beethoven transforms every portion of it to become a determinant of directionality, of stability, of speculation, of exploration?
This is what happened this morning.with my student's involuntary direct responses to the first eight sounds of the middle movement of the Moonlight. I couldn't help but think as we puzzled them out that this is the stuff that theorists mull over but without having half so much fun as we had.
I can imagine Beethoven singing those scales to himself, again, and again.
