Third-Period Hockey and Third-Period Beethoven

Year Two, Week 27, in one pianist’s journey to perform the 32 sonatas of Beethoven

This post is dedicated to the late percussionist, amateur hockey player, and beloved colleague Bob Slapcoff.

During the past month, I took to walking the track at a local arena, like other Islanders during our mud-and-ice season. It’s hard to get up speed anywhere else, since you’re constantly picking around rogue ice patches, clumps of mush, and potholes opened up by winter weather.

Walking into the arena (in Canada, “arena” means ice rink), at once I feel a blast from the past, since I skated here as a kid, and then, cause for marvel at its brand-new renovation.

Amateur men’s pickup game

Oh, it’s still the old place, with its cold stale air, sounds of pucks crashing on the boards, Canadian flag, and scoreboard only mildly updated. But now it has transcended to a two-floor height. On the second floor, bright with blond wood panels and airport-like directional signs, there is a brand-new walking track above the new blue bleachers. It has two lanes.

Everyone must walk clockwise. In the old days when the arena was only for skaters, we skated clockwise around the rink, until the break when the Zamboni came out to resurface the ice, and then we all turned about and continued counterclockwise. Of course we didn’t have lanes on the rink, we just skated en masse.

These days, having two clockwise walking lanes, we have ample opportunity for the so-called “Canadian standoff” — a super-polite dance of adjusting to people of various ages operating at diverse speeds.

In the morning, these are mainly seniors. Since I’m still a baby senior, I pass many of them, feeling secretly smug, until the lunchtime office crowd starts trickling in, when I begin to notice myself being relentlessly if politely passed.

This is the off-season for farmers and fishers. Their average age these days is in the 50s, and because they are seasoned outdoor workers, they sometimes look more weathered than me, but their pace should not be underestimated. I was walking this week when I heard an approaching conversation behind me. Two older male voices were discussing their readiness for the upcoming lobster fishery season in Tignish. That’s a community up West on the Island where the waters are often rough. They hove into view next to me, then easily curved their way past, arms swinging from massive shoulders built up by hauling traps.

The average rural Canadian is of average-sized build, fairly plainly dressed, and quietly rugged. I see lots of such people walking. I probably know them better than I can recognize them. I have been “away” for 30 years and have not watched them age. When I walk here with a childhood friend who married and stayed here, she picks out for me who we both know. We’re not a demonstrative bunch, but it is nice to have this recognition, this common cause, this pace in the same clockwise direction around the same curves we have long traversed. Because we all learned French in school, we can understand that we are in our “troisième age”, meaning “third age” or senior years.

We’re at the age when some of us stay in the slow lane. Some, though not forgotten, are no longer walking here.

The life and works of Ludwig van Beethoven have traditionally been divided into three periods. Sometimes they are given names, like “Imitation” (youthful works influenced by older masters), “Heroism” (robust and powerful middle-period works), and “Transcendence” (contemplative, prophetic and experimental works of older age).

I’ve written “older age” rather than “senior”, since Beethoven died at age 56, well short of the definition of senior we’ve gotten used to.

Here’s something curious. When Beethoven started experimenting with music speed measurements, using his friend Maeltzel’s invention of the metronome, he was already in this older third period. And yet, the speeds he ended up choosing for his music were crazily fast.

Take Beethoven’s third-period Piano Sonata Opus 106, the “Hammerklavier”, which I will be performing this evening.

This is the only piano sonata for which Beethoven put in metronome markings. Perversely – given this is arguably his most difficult sonata – they are at a prohibitively fast pace.

Recordings of this piece travel along one of two lanes. Generally, younger pianists attempt the indicated fast lane, while the older ones take what you imagine they hope will be considered a wiser and deeper slow lane. They can justify ignoring Beethoven’s speeds, due to scholarly controversy over whether Beethoven was properly using the metronome, or was maybe too deaf to hear his intended tempi, or, for other proposed reasons didn’t accurately measure the speed.

I’ve been thinking about this while walking the arena track. Meanwhile, hockey games are played below me. Last week, it was a real official game, the full three periods long, signalled by active use of scoreboard, music track, and black-jacketed referees. The players, two high-school-aged women’s teams, played a whip-fast, elegant game. No aggressive body-checking, just high spirits and flying pony-tails below helmets.

This week, it was a pickup game played by amateur older men, without refs or scoreboard, the players wearing donated jerseys displaying the Canadian Tire store logo. One goalie wore a jersey saying “The Puck Stops Here”. The men were agile and powerful. They were knowledgeable, and far more likely to be in the right place at the right time for a pass than the young women. They, too, had grace and form. But they were cautious; speed and excitement had faded from their game. I can readily understand why. It was the same logic that brought me to the rink to walk, where in past years, I bicycled outdoors at speed, ice and slush be damned.

The men’s game was interesting to watch while walking, but it got better when a few of us women saw a goal being scored, and cheered. A noticeable pick-up of the pace ensued, the men losing caution and becoming more exhilarated.

Picking up my own pace after stopping to applaud, I got more curious about why Beethoven, as an older, deaf and ill guy, chose fast speeds. Immediately I thought of the T.S. Eliot quote:

Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.

Eliot’s choice of words: Folly. Fear. Frenzy. Humility. God. Hope. Humility. All words applicable to the “Hammerklavier” sonata.

Anyone playing the “Hammerklavier” knows that even without considering the metronome markings, it is written to be unplayable. There are unavoidable trade-offs: perfection is written out of the piece.

Maybe Beethoven, in the third period of his life, was like pro hockey players who, in the third and last period of the game, hike up the speed to give it their all. Maybe ultimately, that’s the humble thing to do – which is counter-intuitive, when it hardly seems a humble act to be attempting “Hammerklavier”. Maybe Beethoven is propelling us towards admitting life and death and the urge to crash and stumble towards the light, rather than stepping carefully and wisely in the dusk.

After I thought that, I went home and played through “Hammerklavier” recklessly fast. It was fun. Maybe I’ll do that tonight.