Working on beats and barlines in Beethoven has led me to consider dance rhythms, which are really nothing more than propositions about expectation: We all know how a tango goes, so produce!
But do we really know how any dance goes? Aren't all dances subject to flights of fancy, drunkenness, sadness--states of being that have the power to derail expected beats and downbeats?
Next in the process came Brahms and the Capriccios, Op. 76, Nos 1 and 2. I have the feeling that at last I get it: A capriccio is its own distribution of beats and downbeats, not subject to expectation of any sort--at least not a reliable one. The Intermezzi, Op. 76 Nos. 3 and 4 are even more speculative in relation to not just rhythms, but in their development of particular tone colors from the pieces that precede them. Playing these pieces this way gives them new life.
