Beethoven's 6th, Storm! (far from Perfect!)

[Michael DiFebbo]

Originally Posted by Nick Hart

You do not play a harmonic role here, the basses play an important part in creating a picture of a storm.

It's an interesting effect. I'm looking at the score and there are passages (for example, at measure 21) where the basses have sixteenth note figures (F G Ab Bb) while the celli have sixteenth note quintuplets (F G Ab Bb C). These are not the specific passages that Ken was referring to, but nevertheless, it does seem pretty clear that Beethoven did not intend for these sections to sound perfectly clean, and indeed, on the two recordings that I have, they don't.