BEETHOVEN PIANO SONATAS: APPASSIONATA

Allegro

Adagio

Menuetto: Allegretto

Prestissimo

 

Allegro vivace

Largo appassionato

Scherzo: Allegretto

Rondo: Grazioso

 

Allegro con brio

Adagio

Scherzo: Allegro

Allegro assai

 

Beethoven’s earliest piano sonatas – the three so-called “Kurfürsten Sonatas” –were composed in 1783, when he was just thirteen years old, but the great series of thirty-two numbered sonatas began after his move from Bonn to Vienna with the group of three sonatas published as his Op.2. Beethoven had taken lessons from Haydn who invited his pupil to play one of his new piano sonatas at a private concert in December 1795. This was a huge honour for Beethoven, and he demonstrated his gratitude by dedicating the sonatas to Haydn when they were published by Artaria in March 1796. The Beethoven authority William Kinderman has emphasized the importance of these pieces among the composer’s early works: ‘It was in the piano sonata that Beethoven first revealed the full expressive range and power of invention that he was to demonstrate only years later in some other musical forms.’ In terms of overall design, the piano sonata had usually been in three movements, but in this set Beethoven at once reveals larger, more symphonic ambitions by writing them in four movements. The compositional refinement apparent in these sonatas didn’t happen without a good deal of hard work: the sketches for the F minor Sonata Op.2 No.1 show something of the process by which Beethoven reshaped, shortened and intensified his musical ideas to reach their final state. The result is a daring, dramatic piece that often takes surprising harmonic turns, especially in the central section of the urgent, propulsive first movement which uses the opening rising motif to generate most of the musical argument. The long singing lines of the Adagio provide a contrast, and the Minuet that follows is elegant but at the same time has all sorts of rhythmic ambiguities. The finale has a kind defiant, unstoppable energy, and certainly no kind of happy ending: the close of the work is dramatic, dark and tense.

 

The A major Sonata Op.2 No.2, though in a much sunnier key, again opens with an idea that is not only quite brusque but from which Beethoven derives much of the musical argument that follows, much of it quite fiery. The expansive slow movement is underpinned by an insistent bass line, giving the music an almost symphonic tension. The Scherzo that follows shows a composer who is already inventing unusual ways of exploiting the colours of the instrument and this leads to a finale that unfolds with a gentler inevitability.

 

The last work in the group, the C major Sonata Op.2 No.3 begins with Beethoven again launching into a terse theme that is full of musical possibilities (rather than a particularly memorable tune). What follows is a brilliant exploration of this idea (and a more tender contrasting idea) to produce a movement that has an unquenchable momentum. For the slow movement of this sonata – a truly exceptional creation among Beethoven’s early works – the composer chose the remote key of E major, opening with a long aria-like melody. What follows is a transformation into a new theme, at first into E minor by then opening out into a music that is both harmonically rich and almost painfully expressive. After the emotional upheaval of this movement, the Scherzo that follows is genuinely playful, with a Trio section that is full of flamboyant arpeggios. The finale is a joyous explosion of musical energy, mostly based on effervescent chordal idea that launches the movement.

 

Nigel Simeone ©2011