Beethoven's Uses of Silence

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SILENCE WITHIN MUSIC has been the focus of much attention in recent years, including a whole book on the subject,' but its use by Beethoven has never been examined in depth, despite the extraordinary range and variety of ways in which he exploited it. Here is not the place for a philosophical or aesthetic discussion of what constitutes silence, nor of the ways in which different sorts of silence might be classified; and certain types, such as those that routinely occur between staccato notes, can be disregarded for present purposes. Instead the aim is to investigate the range of contexts in which Beethoven exploited silence in unusual or original ways - an aspect of his style that is …