
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
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EP02 - Beethoven: Sonata No.32 in C Minor (Pogorelich)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/25/22 • 29 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.32 in C Minor (Pogorelich)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi Kumar806,418 views Jun 6, 2014 Very possibly Beethoven's greatest sonata (it may or may not be edged out by the Hammerklavier, and also No.31 has a good punt at the title), and certainly one of the greatest piano works ever written. There is a lot to say about this, but suffice to say that Chopin admired it enough to imitate both the beginning and end of the first movement (in the opening of his B-flat Minor sonata, and in the end of the Revolutionary etude respectively).
The boogie-woogie variation is at 16:47 , but the best moment of the generally awesome second movement comes at 21:56 . [Brendel's comment: "...perhaps nowhere else in piano literature does mystical experience feel so immediately close at hand."]
This is also a marvellous rendition by Pogorelich, who plays with absolutely clarity, with no indulgence and quite a lot of intensity (as in "focus", not "aggressive"). The tempo choice is especially good -- the music has space to breathe.

EP03 - Beethoven: Sonata Op.111 No.32 in C Minor (Uchida)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/25/22 • 27 min
Beethoven: Sonata Op.111 No.32 in C Minor (Uchida)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarYes, okay, this praise is a little hackneyed, and there’s no shortage of wild-eyed gushing over this sonata, but this sonata is not just great but profound -- a staunchly (weirdly) unrepresentative apotheosis of the form. I’m not sure this sonata can be properly explained – as Wittgenstein said, mysteries are meant to be deepened, not explained, but I’ll try to point out some interesting features. In general, the sonata is strange because it’s in just two movements: the first a welter of surging darkness, the second sharply contrasting, but otherwise more or less beyond conventional description. No-one’s quite sure if Beethoven really meant to write a 3rd movement, but it’s true in any case that the sonata has a searching, hanging quality despite the straightforward dualism between the two movements (major/minor, fast/slow, harmonic agitation/harmonic stasis, angular/melodic, propulsive/static, terrestrial/divine.)
The allegro:
- The striking opening, about which probably more than enough has already been said.
- The profusion of diminished 7ths in the introduction, which has no apparently structural answer (cf the Pathetique) even though it is mirrored (possibly) in the development at: 6:09
- If you listen to Romantic fugues, you’ll can’t help but keep thinking that the texture of the entire movement is extremely fugal (see esp 5:50). Properly speaking, the dramatic tremolo leads into a fugal theme that is never realised, instead turning into a free-form canon. The entire work is characterised by this sort of deliberate incompleteness: notice how disjointed the two main motives of the movement are, and how they never really seem to get off the ground. (Hence the description you’ll keep encountering when reading about this movement: “struggle”.)
- Note how often Beethoven uses the dramatic device of placing the hands quite far apart when you wouldn’t expect this. For instance, if both hands are playing mirroring each other, they will be two octaves apart, so that there is an “unspoken” note between them (6:18, 6:56, 8:32).
The arietta (theme and variations):
- Something which almost everyone fails to notice is that this arietta begins on an upbeat. The melody proper does not begin with the C-G fall. Instead it begins E-F-D. (Try to keep this in mind as you go through the variations.)
- That being said, for a set of variations, this entire 2nd movement is marked by rather exalted strangeness.
- Consider the nature of the variations themselves. They do not wander into different keys. They do not change tempo (NB the “incorrect” time signatures, since Beethoven leaves out all the implied triplets). They contain no thematic transformation in the style of Liszt in his B minor sonata. They do not elaborate on portions on the theme (cf the Diabelli Variations). Instead, each variation is a model of structural minimalism (something totally weird to ascribe to Beethoven): it goes through the theme’s harmony exactly as first written, preserving the broad melodic contour, and all that changes is how much each beat is subdivided: each variation (roughly speaking) divides the beats in the previous variation into either 3 or 4. The extraordinary thing is how much the nature of the theme changes via this simple device: it starts out form something that’s serene in a rather static, glacial, quietly monumental sort of way (9:20), and then gains a berceuse-ish lilt (11:38), and then a bit of swing (13:58), and then erupts into ecstasy (15:56 - this sounds like boogie-woogie, and there’s nothing wrong with listening to it that way, but be aware that this rhythmic pattern is something that has grown naturally out of all that has come before, and that this is not supposed to sound light-hearted but brokenly propulsive, maybe even rapturous in a slightly painful way), and then becomes a set of muted pulses of colour (18:00, 19:16) strung within an ethereal halo (18:40, 19:56) – a whisper, really, that proves that major keys can do a lot more than be happy, and can in fact be very sad – and then becomes a heart-stoppingly generous, grateful chorale (23:30).
- This very straightforward variation structure is interrupted at one point and one point only, and that moment is (like many of the moments of structural breakdown in Beethoven’s last sonatas) utterly gorgeous – listen for those tiny dissonances at the peak of the implied LH melody (20:41) – and then utterly devastating (22:07). It features the only modulation in the movement.
- This is the basic thing about the movement: a simple, unpromising theme, developed via a simple, unpromising heuristic, producing something sublime. (I mean sublime not in the usual sense, but ...

EP05 - Beethoven: Sonata No.31 in A-flat Major, Op.110 (Lortie, Siirala, Kovacevich)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/25/22 • 59 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.31 in A-flat Major, Op.110 (Lortie, Siirala, Kovacevich)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarThe most warmly lyrical of all of Beethoven’s late sonatas, and probably my favourite of all 32.
Why? Well, to start with the obvious: In a late sonata, where you’d expect ambiguity, radical structural innovation, gnarled counterpoint – a conventional 1st movement, with a theme so simple and unadorned [0:18] its only warrant, really, is its beauty. The development is not just simple but consciously minimalist, and the shift to and from E Maj in the recapitulation [3:36; 4:09] is exquisitely beautiful.
There is also the structural tightness of the sonata. The opening bars of the sonata become the subject of the first fugue in the last movement, and, in an inverted form, the subject of the second fugue also. The opening phrase of the 2nd movement scherzo [6:24] also becomes transformed into the arioso of the final movement [10:26]. So Beethoven does not just shift the focus of the sonata form from first movement to last, or even use the final movement to unify the other two – in this sonata, the final movement is where the themes presented in other two really take flight, and the final movement is almost entirely built around material already presented.
Also, that last movement. It features the most sophisticated use of counterpoint of all 32 sonatas: not because the contrapuntal writing is ingenious (which it is, but Sonatas No.28 + 29 have got that too), but because the counterpoint is used (maybe for the first time in musical history) as part of a dramatic narrative. The final movement is basically a struggle between the arioso theme, which is not merely sad but crushingly hopeless (dolente = painful, aching, ermattet = exhausted) to the point of its literally breaking up the second time it’s presented, and the fugue, which radiates an inner strength and consolation.
In the end, the fugue wins, but in an extraordinary way. The second fugue does not merely achieve a triumphant shape: it burns itself out of existence. As the texture thickens and intensifies with inversions and simultaneous presentations of augmentations and diminuitions [57:30], suddenly there are just two voices duelling in ecstasy [57:53, with the shift to 2 voices at 58:05], incessantly reaching higher, and then suddenly there is just one voice, the main theme pouring out in a great chorale [58:19]. It’s my favourite moment in all the 32 sonatas – a theme that leaps out of its own chasm of counterpoint, and when finally freed rings with a kind of joy which should be impossible after the arioso but somehow isn’t. And because the fugue theme is really the opening bars of the entire sonata, the sonata has an open-ended, cyclic form, with the basic movement over the entire piece being from lyricism (the opening) to hope (the final bars).
MVT I EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1 00:41 – Transition (a highly abstracted form of the melody that just preceded it) 01:05 – Theme (Group) 2 02:12 –DEVELOPMENT (Note how compressed it is, and how reliant on counterpoint) 03:03 – RECAPITULATION (Theme 1 is combined with the Transition theme in the LH) 05:59 – CODA
MVT II 06:24 – Scherzo 07:04 – Trio (Cleverly constructed out of large upward leaps and downward descents: Beethoven’s manuscript shows he struggled a lot working out of figuration of this section) 07:31 – Scherzo 08:13 – CODA/transition
MVT III 08:30 – INTRODUCTION 10:26 – ARIOSO (the melody is built from the downward gesture that opens the scherzo) 12:52 – FUGA I (The fugue subject is built from an ascending chain of fourths, and is derived from the sonata’s opening phrase. The countersubject is built from a descending chain of fourths.) 15:13 – ARIOSO (note how the melody is broken up, “sobbing”) 18:00 – FUGA II (The fugue subject is a straightforward inversion of the first fugue’s subject. If there was any doubt about the narrative structure of this movement Beethoven has marked this section wieder auflebend = again reviving, poi a poi di nuovo vivente = little by little with renewed vigour) 18:23 – The subject of the first fugue enters the fray in the lowest voice, in diminished form and with a different rhythmic emphasis. Immediately after, the first fugue subject also enters in the top voice, but this time in augmented form. 18:48 – A double diminuition of the first fugue subject is introduced, with a relaxing of the tempo which generates the effect of a gradual ...

EP06 - Beethoven: Sonata No.30 in E Major, Op.109 (Goode, Levit)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/26/22 • 37 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.30 in E Major, Op.109 (Goode, Levit)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarBeethoven’s 30th Sonata is to the Hammerklavier what a koan is to a novel: ultra-compressed, terse, deeply enigmatic (so enigmatic, in fact, that we can’t even decide if it’s got 2 or 3 movements). It marks a return to intimate structures after the vastness of the Hammerklavier, but despite its beauty and warmth it’s as deeply radical as anything which Beethoven wrote.
In terms of large-scale structure, the Op.109 does a couple of very interesting things. There is the fact that Mvt 1 is extremely short, being built more around contrast (the old, “classical” ideal), and containing little thematic development (the new “romantic” ideal that Beethoven had done so much to build). Perhaps because of this, Mvt 2 (to pick up the slack?) is also in sonata form (a scherzo without the trio is also a good reading), another very unusual step. Add to this the fact that for the first time in Beethoven’s sonata output the focus is now the last movement (instead of the first, which is the norm), which is considerably longer than both Mvt 1 + 2. This pattern – of having a slow and large final movement which ends the piece with a kind of devotional intensity – is repeated in the two sonatas which come after the Op.109.
The relationship between Mvt 1 & 2 is also pretty interesting: they sort of function as a combined counterweight to Mvt 3. They are joined together (not by an attaca indication, which is unusual) by the thinnest of tissues – the holding down of the pedal. Both main (opening) themes of both movements are also very similar: the basses of both are built around a simple descending scale.
The sonata as a whole is also unified by the motivic interval of a 3rd. The 1st theme of the Mvt 1 has a principal melody (highlighted as quarter-notes) which basically consists of paired 3rds (G#-B, F#-A, E-G#), as is the 1st theme of the Mvt 2 (the RH basically goes G-E, B-G, E-G). The theme of Mvt 3 opens with a 3rd, which recurs throughout the variations. In Var.2 the 2nd and 3rd notes in the RH are separated by a 3rd, and the pattern recurs (F#-D#, then G#-E, F#-D#, F#-A#). In Var.3, the pattern is obvious: both RH and LH move outward in 3rd. In Var.4, the rhythmically important notes are also separated by 3rds (for the most part: B-G#-E in the opening phrased, for instance). In Var.5 the fugue subject closely resembles the sonata’s opening principal melody, and so on.
Last thing to note: the last movement, a theme and variations (unusual end to a sonata), contains much of Beethoven’s most beautiful writing. The bit from 35:19 to 36:17 (including the theme’s re-entrance at 35:40) must count as one of the most transcendent 1-min segments of music ever written. In fact, the 3 most lyrically intense/ecstatic/generous 1-min segments of music Beethoven ever wrote are probably all found in the last movements of his last three sonatas (the closing chorale of the 31st, and the brief moment in the 32nd when the theme and variation form is abandoned.)
MVT I EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1 00:11 – Theme 2 (the culmination of Beethoven’s experimentation with quasi-recitative structures in sonata form. Note the sudden changes of harmony.) DEVELOPMENT 01:05 – Theme 1 RECAPITULATION 01:38 – Theme 1 01:50 – Theme 2 (Note the violent transition to C Maj at 2:11, which Levit emphasises very well [21:27]) 02:52 – Theme 1 03:22 – CODA
MVT II EXPOSITION 03:42 – Theme 1 (note the bass line, which is what the development will pick up on) 03:49 – Theme 2 (or the start of Theme Group 2) DEVELOPMENT 04:31 – Theme 1’s bass line is presented in canon in RH 04:42 – Theme 1’s bass line is presented against itself in inversion RECAPITULATION 05:02 – Theme 1 05:14 – Theme (Group) 2 05:49 – CODA
MVT III 06:02 – Theme 08:15 – VAR.1. A waltz. 10:21 – VAR.2. Three variations in one, the second of which features lovely contrapuntal writing [10:42; 11:33] and last of which is especially moving [10:55; 11:43] 11:56 – VAR.3 12:12 – VAR.4 14:53 – VAR.5. A spectacular little chorale-fugue, erupting out of an essentially lyrical movement. Oddly enough, Beethoven does not mark the final two variations in the score, instead leaving only tempo indications. No-one is quite sure why this is. 15:45 – VA...

EP07 - Beethoven: Sonata No.29 in B-flat Major, "Hammerklavier" (Levit)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/26/22 • 41 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.29 in B-flat Major, "Hammerklavier" (Levit)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarAnd here’s the biggest one of them all. The weird, titanic, gnarled, joyous, grief-stricken monster that is the Hammerklavier. Where exactly to begin?
With the interval of a 3rd, I guess. It permeates the work at every level, creating close coordination between motivic/harmonic detail, and tonal structure. The main theme of each movement is built from the same motif: a rising and then falling 3rd. In the final movement the 3rd both defies the movement in the bass in the introduction, as well as the shape of the fugue theme: a rising 3rd (10th), following by a scalar figure that is repeated, each time descending by a 3rd. Harmonically, the development section of the third movement is built on a sequence of 3rds, and the trio of the scherzo oscillates between Bb Minor and Db Major, two keys separated by a 3rd.
At an even deeper structural level, the 3rd is all-pervasive. You’d expect, in a Bb Maj sonata, that the dominant key of F would play a major role, but in 40+ minutes of music there is not a single modulation to that key. Instead, Beethoven constructs an intricate system of four keys around Bb, and returns to them time and time again. Three of them, G, D, and F#, are all separated from Bb by the interval of a third. The final, the “black key” of B Minor, occurs in every movement and functions as an anti-thesis to Bb Major. The struggle between these two keys dramatically frames the entire sonata (just listen to the scherzo’s ending).
There’s lots more to the Hammerklavier than the 3rd. You’ve got structural innovations: in the 1st movement’s recapitulation the return to the stable tonic is heavily delayed (by, yes, the key of B minor), and in the 2nd the development is too short, but the recapitulation varies and decorates the theme so extensively that it becomes a sort of extended development. And you’ve got the sheer contrapuntal and dramatic genius of the last movement, where a huge number of traditional contrapuntal devices are wielded with a jaggedness and fury that belies their conservative associations. It's also worth noting how contrapuntal the writing in the 1st movement is -- one of the most striking features of Beethoven's late work.
MVT 1 EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1 00:43 – Shift to D (modulating by 3rd), beginning of Theme group 2. 01:51 – Theme 2 (G Maj; modulating by 3rd) DEVELOPMENT 04:44 – Theme 2 04:58 – Theme 1 head 05:06 – Fughetta based on Theme 1 head 06:09 – Shift from D to B Maj (modulation by 3rd; note closeness to “black key”) RECAPITULATION 06:37 – Theme 1 06:48 – Shift to Gb/F#. Harmonic instability follows, and we move eventually to 07:29 – Bm (and then G, another modulation by a 3rd, and then back at 7:51 to Bb) 08:49 – Theme 2 09:19 – CODA; Theme 2 09:39 – Theme 1 head 09:50 – Theme 1
MVT 3 EXPOSITION 12:44 – Main Theme 15:14 – Transition 16:43 – Theme Group 2, Theme 1 17:25 – Theme Group 2, Theme 2 18:25 – Theme Group 2, Theme 3 19:27 – DEVELOPMENT 20:17 – RECAPITULATION [extended development]
MVT 4: PART I 29:52 – Introduction. Note movement by 3rds in bass, interspersed with episodes of original material. PART II 32:37 – Introduction and development of fugue theme [Theme 1] and countersubject. Note how long the theme is, containing a leap and trill in the head (ordinarily a concluding device), scalar descent in 3rds in the middle, and a long chromatic tail with much implied dissonance. PART III 34:07 – Introduction and brief development of new theme [Theme 2] in Gb 34:21 – Augmentation [doubled note value] of fugue theme, with countersubject (note the constant descent by 3rds) 34:49 – Stretto [overlapping entry] of the fugue theme’s head [leap + trill] PART IV 34:57 – Return to Theme 2, in Ab 35:34 – Theme 1 in retrograde [backwards] 36:10 – Stretti of Theme 1, initially in inversion, then including original (Note key of B) 36:46 – Entire subject in mirrored form 37:20 – Increasing focus on Theme 1’s head, leading to trill-laden passage at 37:30 PART V 37:41 – Ch...

EP08 - Beethoven: Sonata No.28 in A Major, Op.101 (Levit, Lewis, Korstick)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/26/22 • 63 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.28 in A Major, Op.101 (Levit, Lewis, Korstick)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarThis sonata is a little overshadowed by the Hammerklavier, which it precedes, but should not be. It’s the first of Beethoven’s late sonatas, and is groundbreaking in more ways than one. It might be the case that its ingenuity is overlooked because it is worn so lightly – this is the most tender and good-natured of all the late sonatas.
The first movement is this sonata is ultra-compressed, as is typical of the late sonatas (well, some of them at least: I’m looking at you, Hammerklavier). The most extraordinary feature of the movement is its quality of infinitude –it is constructed such that the melody unfolds forever like a Wagner “run-on” progression [see 0:14], and the method by which this is achieved becomes clear when you notice that in this A Maj movement, the root position tonic chord never occurs at all until the very end of the piece. So a movement which opens on the dominant (in a manner rather like a Bach prelude), really turns out to be single (interrupted and extended) dominant-tonic progression.
The second movement is a march where a scherzo would be, and has rather unexpected musical and dramatic heft. The movement is in F Maj, far removed from A Maj, and the movement also features prominent episodes in A Maj and Db Maj (even further removed from A Maj). The three keys are all related by the interval of a third, in clear anticipation of the Hammerklavier’s even more extensive large-scale deployment of the interval. The passage which leads back from Db to F Maj is one of Beethoven’s magical passages, where the pedal is instructed to be held down despite changes in harmony [5:21; more dramatically 52:00].
Note also the heavily canonic writing of the second movement’s middle (“sort-of-trio”) section, and the extensive canonic writing in the last movement [14:20, 14:49]. This is the most canon-heavy of Beethoven’s sonatas, but at lot of this stuff passes by almost without notice because the canonic writing is so unintrusive and joyous.
The third movement is essentially an intermezzo or introduction, which would make you expect it to lead straight into the final movement. Instead, extraordinarily, after a long pause on the dominant, it leads back to a repeat of the first movement’s main theme: one of the most moving moments in all of Beethoven’s music.
The final movement is heavily contrapuntal: even before we encounter the fugue which is the development, we’re given a main theme that is highly contrapuntal in a rather Bachian, imitative way. The fugue of the development section is the most good-natured one Beethoven ever wrote (all of the fugal episodes in Beethoven’s late sonatas have very distinct characters, and this one is certainly the nice guy in the family). It begins with a minimalist quotation of the sonata’s opening [16:33], and features a consistently gentle humour (see the unresolved trill at [16:56 and similar] and the fugue subject which enters at 16:51, which is described by Schiff as “a villain tiptoeing on a stage”). Formally, it’s also worth noting that the fugue employs an inventive harmonic scheme where the first entry is in A Min, the second in C Maj (E Min would be the “correct” key), and the third in D Min.
The movement also features a low E prominently because Beethoven had just gotten a new Broadwood piano with a low E the Viennese pianos didn’t have and was eager to show it off. See the wonderful passage that ends the development [18:28], where the bass features a heavily augmented version of the movement’s theme (A-F#-G#-A-B-E) embedded in a pounding low E, which Beethoven actually points out by writing “Contra E”(!) The sonata’s coda also features the low E recurring in the bass – as Schiff observes, Beethoven used the low E whenever he could, like a child with a new toy.
MVT I – Etwas Lebhaft und mit innigsten Empfindung (“Rather lively, with the warmest feeling”) EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1 00:14 – Theme 2 [Note how fast we arrive in the dominant] 01:06 – A syncopated “floating” progression, where the resolution to the tonic is extensively delayed 01:20 – DEVELOPMENT [Note the integration of the syncopation into the texture] 02:13 – RECAPITULATION [Note the highly unobtrusive return of the main theme: it’s basically smuggled into the texture] 03:02 – CODA
MVT II – Lebhaft, marschmässig (“Lively, restrained march” – Note how Schumanesque this movement is) 04:18 – March [Note the chromatic fourth in the bass and the sudden harmonic disolations] 07:15 – Trio 08:32 – March gradually returns
MVT III – Langs...

EP09 - Beethoven: Sonata No.27 in E Minor, Op.90 (Korstick, Biss, Lewis)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/27/22 • 39 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.27 in E Minor, Op.90 (Korstick, Biss, Lewis)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarThe Op.90 Sonata evades easy characterisation. It’s highly compressed, usually taking no more than 14 minutes to be performed in its entirety, and is constructed with incredible efficiency despite its thematic richness. The refrain of the second movement rondo is one of the most beautiful melodies Beethoven ever wrote, but the first movement is far more difficult to pin down – it’s certainly full of tension, but of a rather lonesome and despairing sort –it’s not menacing like the Appassionata or violent like the Op.111. Of particular note is the development section of the first movement, which is as short as it is ingenious, and the structure of the rondo (which typically is a little mysterious – it has elements of sonata form, and no-one knows if it’s really got a coda and where it begins if it does exist.)
MVT I, Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck (“With liveliness and with feeling and expression throughout”) EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1.1 00:10 – Theme 1.2 00:22 – Theme 1.3 00:40 – Transition 01:00 – Theme 2.1 01:12 – Theme 2.2 (Note the 10ths in the LH, which are notoriously awkward to play) DEVELOPMENT 01:49 – Theme 1.1, with accompaniment from Theme 2.1 01:57 – Theme 1.1 continues, but with its link to Theme 1.3 more clearly displayed 02:06 – Theme 1.1’s rhythm, over a G pedal 02:18 – Theme 1.2 with added counterpoint 02:22 – The RH introduces decoration, while Theme 1.2 is relentlessly shortened until only its head is left, used sequentially: 2:29. 02:42 – The final bit of RH decoration is augmented and gradually revealed to be Theme 1.1, in a transitory passage of extraordinary efficiency – stuff like what happens at 2:52 was really unheard-of before this sonata RECAPITULATION – 03:57 04:50 – As a sort-of coda Themes 1.1 and 1.3 are repeated as they are in the exposition, but Theme 1.2 is gone.
MVT II, Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen (“Not too swiftly and conveyed in a singing manner”) THEME – 05:20 (E maj) EPISODE 1 – 06:15 (C# min) EPISODE 2 – 06:30 (B maj) [Note the relation to the theme, and the gently dissonant slow trill starting from 6:42] EPISODE 3 – 07:02 (B maj) THEME – 07:20 (E maj, with a long modulating tail) EPISODE 3 / Quasi-development – 08:35 (C maj/C min/C# min/C# maj/E maj) THEME / Quasi – recapitulation – 09:20 (E maj) EPISODE 1 – 10:15 (C# min) EPISODE 2 – 10:31 (E maj – viewed from a sonata-form schematic, we’re in the recapitulation, since the B theme – episodes 2/3 – is now presented in the tonic, rather than the original dominant) EPISODE 3 – 11:02 (E maj, with an unexpected modulation to C at the end) 11:04 – Transition CODA 11:54 – Theme, in lower registers 12:56 – Theme, compressed 13:14 – Theme 13:30 – EPILOGUE [It’s a pretty extraordinary passage, introducing some rather string-quartet-like 4-part writing, decelerating, accelerating, and then sneaking in an ending so unobtrusive you don’t quite notice it’s already here.]

EP10 - Beethoven: Sonata No.26 in E-flat Major, "Les Adieux" (Oppitz, Lortie)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/27/22 • 34 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.26 in E-flat Major, "Les Adieux" (Oppitz, Lortie)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarThe Les Adieaux is one of the great works from Beethoven’s middle period, and is notable for several reasons. For a start, it’s Beethoven’s only explicitly programmatic sonata; the three movements are labelled The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return respectively. The first movement is bound by an aching motif; the second is full of painful suspensions and diminished 7th chords, and the last movement is an explosion of joy.
There’s also the fact (too little remarked-upon) that the last movement really is a Concerto for Solo Piano, with many passages that might as well be flagged “tutti” (see 11:10, for instance, which features the sort of writing you’ll see in orchestral transcriptions for piano, or 11:17, when the piano joins the orchestra with a brilliant solo part), virtuoso passages which come right out of the Emperor Concerto (see 11:45, and compare it with the passage that begins here: https://youtu.be/6j-qf5790T8?t=204), and symphonic layering (see 11:34, with the flutes in the RH, and 11:43, where’s it’s all too easy to imagine the cellos taking the LH, the violins and woodwinds the higher voices, and so on).
More well-known is the use of the Lebewohl motif through the first movement (see the notes below), and the two very substantial codas to the outer movements, which develop themes already introduced.
MVT I, Das Lebewohl (The Farewell), Adagio; Allegro 00:00 – INTRODUCTION [Note transformation of Lebewohl motif at 00:31, with a sudden key change] EXPOSITION 01:28 – Theme 1 [Inversion of Lebewohl motif in bass at 1:33] 01:40 – Transition [Note Lebewohl motif in LH and RH (inverted) at 1:45] 02:03 – Theme 2 [Note Lebewohl motif in upper voice] DEVELOPMENT 03:25 – Theme 1, in C min, interspersed with augmented Lebewohl motif/rhythm (3:29 and similar: two solitary notes followed by a long chord). The LH soon begins a modulatory sequence based on the head of theme 1 (3:31 and similar) 03:54 – Start of transition to recapitulation. The recapitulation is snuck back via a deconstruction of Theme 1 into its smallest elements: 4:04 RECAPITULATION – 04:11 CODA (Note its length and the amount of thematic development it contains) 05:04 – Lebewohl motif, leading to restatement of Theme 1 in F min 05:30 – Overlapping statements of the Lebewohl motif in RH and LH. This leads to some daring dissonances between topic and dominant harmony (see e.g., 6:25) 06:43 – A pedal Eb introduces a touching closing passage
MVT II, Abwesenheit (The Absence), Andante espressivo: In gehender Bewegung, doch mit viel Ausdruck (“In walking motion, but with much expression”) 07:08 – Theme, Cycle 1 [Note the prominent diminished 7th which opens the theme, the recollection of the 1st movement’s Theme 1 at 7:17, and the repeated usage of the opening appoggiatura throughout the movement to generate a sense of irresolution] 08:53 – Theme, Cycle 2 10:15 – Theme, Cycle 3, incomplete / Coda
MVT III, Das Wiedersehen (The Return), Vivacissimamente: Im lebhaftesten Zeitmaße (“The liveliest time measurements”) 10:45 – INTRODUCTION EXPOSITION 10:54 – Theme 1 11:24 – Transition (This bell-like passage is a little mysterious; the pedal is instructed to be kept on, but each note is indicated staccato, and separated from the next by a rest. There is also the matter of the uneasy harmony: the use of the first inversion gives both chords a minor patina, and the fact that each chord is separated from the other by a semitone makes this passage unusually dramatic) 11:44 – Theme 2 DEVELOPMENT 13:42 – Descending arpeggio, recalling Theme 1 13:45 – Modulating passages, recalling Theme 2 14:00 – Theme 2, with the original RH and LH accompaniments switched (they are returned to their original positions after just 2 seconds) 14:07 – Theme 2’s LH voice now becomes the main melody: and again the state of affairs is remedied after 2 seconds 14:12 – Theme 1 is used contrapuntally in a passage containing numerous stretti 14:18 – A false entry of theme 1 in the subdominant RECAPITULAT...

EP11 - Beethoven: Sonata No.25 in G Major, "Cuckoo" (Goode, Lewis, Kovacevich)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/27/22 • 28 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.25 in G Major, "Cuckoo" (Goode, Lewis, Kovacevich)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarI’ve got a real soft spot for this sonata: it’s the shortest of the three-movement sonatas and contains no emotional extremities, no bravura, no structural extravagance, no demonstrations of new technique or sonority (despite coming after the radically new Appassionata). And yet this sonata is beautiful, because what it is is a completely spontaneous and unforced expression of joy (listen to 23:52 - the whole coda is wonderful). It’s the kind of thing you enjoy from the first listen and love from the second, and which you never have to struggle with at any point. In that way it’s like Mozart at his best.
This sonata is also one of those rare things that’s more or less interpretively bulletproof: it works at all kinds of tempi, with all kinds of dynamic additions and articulations: it’ll end up sounding gently humorous, or lyrical, or even dramatic, but whatever it is it’ll sound pretty good.
The nickname “Cuckoo” comes from the second and third notes of the first movement (a descending third), whose harmonic elaboration in the development and use in the coda have the feel of the eponymous bird-call (see 1:14 for a lithe Haydn-esque treatment, 10:46 for a lyrical treatment, and 20:41 for a motoric, dry treatment). Interestingly the “Cuckoo” motif (well, a third) is also important to the second movement (it is the decisive interval of not just the G min theme but also the Eb maj middle section of the Andante) and the third (all those thirds in the beginning of the Vivace).
Another point of interest is the modulatory sequence in the first movement’s development: usually key changes in sonatas are spoken of in structural terms which are very hard to intuitively hear, but the development is a textbook-perfect example of how modulation can be used to generate real “wow” moments.
And one last thing: the A theme of the Rondo uses exactly the same harmony as the opening of the Op.109 [see https://youtu.be/8JZGiY--2LM], though in character it couldn’t be more different from it: the Op.109 is adventitious, expansive, even mysterious, but the Rondo here is taut and perky. It’s hard not to smile at the opening of the Vivace once you hear the similarity.
MVT I EXPOSITION 00:00 – Theme 1, G maj 00:15 – Theme 2, D maj DEVELOPMENT 01:09 – Theme 1, E maj 01:14 – “Cuckoo”, E maj 01:19 – “Cuckoo”, now with pedal and without sforzandi, in C maj 01:12 – Theme 1 (second half), C maj 01:31 – “Cuckoo”, C min 01:37 – “Cuckoo”, Eb maj 01:43 – Theme 1 (second half), Eb maj 01:51 – “Cuckoo”, D maj 01:59 – RECAPITULATION (Note that the development and recapitulation are repeated) 04:00 – CODA. Theme is repeated in G in bass, in A in treble, and then with acciaccaturas
MVT II 04:26 – A section, G min 05:13 – B section, Eb maj (A key introduced in the first movement) 06:21 – A section, G min
MVT III 07:33 – A theme, G maj 07:58 – B theme, E min 08:12 – A theme, now with triplet accompaniment 08:23 – C theme, C maj 08:35 – A theme, with an almost-invisible false beginning, and then with the LH triplets replaced by semiquavers, and then with the triplets migrating to the RH 09:05 – Coda

EP01 - Beethoven: Sonata No.32 in C Minor, Op.111 (Levit, Korstick)
Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas
07/25/22 • 55 min
Beethoven: Sonata No.32 in C Minor, Op.111 (Levit, Korstick)
Author: Ashish Xiangyi KumarBeethoven’s last sonata is often identified as one of the most powerful and transcendent works in piano literature, but if anything that description understates how incredible this work is. Like all of B.’s late sonatas, the Op.111 features quite a lot of contrapuntal writing in both movements, and a very compressed Mvt 1. But what makes this sonata very different from all the rest is its use of polarity, of contrasts between 2 extremes. On the broadest level, you see this play out the structure of the sonata, which, unusually for B., has only two movements: the first jagged and toweringly menacing, the second rarefied, spiritual, generous, sometimes ecstatic. You also see this play out in the contrast between the 1st and 2nd themes of the 1st movement: the 1st theme is taut and angular, almost orchestral, while the 2nd sounds wholly improvised. There is also the use of sonic distance in this sonata: in the 1st movement the two hands often play parallel running passages two or more octaves apart, plus there are also passages in 13ths and the like and in the Arietta there are passages where both hands play at the extreme ends of the keyboard.You can add to this a whole host of textural and harmonic innovations. For instance, the introduction, which appears unconnected to the rest of the sonata, is built around a sequence of diminished 7th chords that recurs at multiple points in Mvt 1, and in particularly dramatic form in the development’s close. The awe-inspiring Arietta has a rapt, highly static theme that gains life from the increasing rhythmic subdivision it is subjected to, until it bursts into joy in one particularly famous variation. And then there are the hair-rising trills in the Coda, which introduce the only real tonal diversity into the movement, and the warmth and tenderness of the last two variations, snuck in after the coda.Strangely enough, it wasn’t that hard to choose the two recordings here: one has my favourite Arietta, the other my favourite Mvt 1. Levit is one of those pianists you really want to use the word “poetic” to describe, except that that word is so bland and vague it really does his playing a disservice. Immaculate voicing (the little fughetta in Mvt 1!), pearlescent technique, incredible attention to detail – all that is there in spades, but something else too, that makes his Arietta the most heartbreaking I’ve heard on record to date. The last two variations (5 + 6) are shaped so well their sense of warmth and tenderness takes the breath away, and the slow-build up into Var. 4 is magical, luminous. Among all the really great B. pianists Korstick seems to understand – and use – contrast the best, and since this sonata has contrast as its entire justifying premise Korstick does spectacularly well here. His Mvt 1 is stunning, with blackly propulsive playing supported by a faster-than-usual-tempo that never really slips, even in the second theme. The overall impression is that of crushing despair. The Arietta is also wonderfully played: it starts off at a really slow tempo, but accelerates suddenly when Var.4 is reached. And Korstick’s approach to Var.4 is really interesting: he often treats the triplet rhythms as something between a tripet and duplet rhythm proper, giving the variation a feel of being possessed, of being swept up in its own ecstasy. Korstick also plays trills with total control and beauty: see those in the Coda or Var.6, which are almost ridiculously well-projected. Var.5 does not quite come with the sense of transfixed release that Levit manages, but the counterpoint is especially clear, a trait of Korstick’s playing that works wonders at moments like 48:24.Levit:00:00 – Mvt 109:25 – Mvt 2Korstick:27:21 – Mvt 136:11 – Mvt 2
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