Beethoven: The Sketch and Waves

The power of sketching in a notebook is not to be underestimated, and, quite possibly, there is no risk of overestimating it.

When done in the right spirit, it comes from the place of magic. The right spirit cannot be faked, it is the sum of a person and their daily lifestyle. Assuming a person is at least making a stab at doing things proper, the mantra “sketch away” will serve them well.

Richard Kramer, in his work on Beethoven’s compositional process, says the sketches of the German composer contain “all the fire of imagination” that lead to his larger works. They are the “window of the artist’s soul,” to quote George Sulzer.

Sulzer says that only by the sketch can the “exceptional power and beauty” come to be, that sketch born from “abundance of feeling,” “fire of inspiration,” Begeisterung. The work then grows, he says, by the Begeisterung waves, the more reflective and less impassioned states of mind.