Our relationship to Beethoven is a deep and paradoxical one. For many musicians, he represents a kind of holy grail: His music has an intensity, rigor, and profundity which keep us in its thrall, and it is perhaps unequalled in the interpretive, technical, and even spiritual challenges it poses to performers. At the same time, Beethoven’s music is casually familiar to millions of people who do not attend concerts or consider themselves musically inclined. Two hundred years after his death, he is everywhere in the culture, yet still represents its summit. This course takes an inside-out look at the 32 piano sonatas from the point of view of a performer. Each lecture will focus on one sonata and an aspect of Beethoven’s music exemplified by it. (These might include: the relationship between Beethoven the pianist and Beethoven the composer; the critical role improvisation plays in his highly structured music; his mixing of extremely refined music with rougher elements; and the often surprising ways in which the events of his life influenced his compositional process and the character of the music he was writing.) The course will feature some analysis and historical background, but its perspective is that of a player, not a musicologist. Its main aim is to explore and demystify the work of the performer, even while embracing the eternal mystery of Beethoven’s music itself. This season's Curtis courses are sponsored by Linda Richardson in loving memory of her husband, Dr. Paul Richardson. The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation supports Curtis's lifelong learning initiatives.
Re-shaping the Sonata: Op. 26
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Del curso dictado por Curtis Institute of Music
Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas
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De la lección
New Paths
Beethoven’s conception of the sonata was perpetually in flux, but the year 1801 is a particularly experimental one. The four sonatas Op. 26 through 28 (Nos. 14 through 17, chronologically) feature the most concrete innovations among the sonatas written up to that point, and are the focus of this lecture. There will be discussion of the relationship between the movements in a classical sonata, and the radical shift it begins to undergo at this point. We will also examine the ways in which these sonatas were influential to future generations of composers, which the earlier works, great as they are, were not.
As a special feature for this lecture, a recording by a current Curtis student of the first movement of Op. 28 will be available on Curtis Performs.
Conoce a los instructores
Jonathan BissNeubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies
Performance Faculty
[MUSIC]
So, to review very briefly.
The sonata form draws its considerable drama from the fact that, early on, we
leave the home tonality for the dominant, and then we take the bulk
of the rest of the movement to find our way back.
Once we do find our way back, the drama comes from our need to stay
there, even while replicating the material that took
us away from home in the first place.
Now, the variation form is about as far from this as one could possibly be.
It consists of, obviously, a theme.
And in this case, five variations. It could be less, or certainly more.
The Diabelli Variations, for example, are a set of 33 variations,
although that is a pretty extreme case.
Now, in Opus 26, one of the variations
is in A-flat minor, rather than the central major.
But, essentially, each variation has the same exact harmonic scheme as the theme.
Each variation covers all of the same territory
and in the same sequence time and time again.
And because the theme, as is the custom,
both begins and ends on the tonic at home,
once we hit the first variation, there is truly zero harmonic suspense in the music.
We know exactly what is going to happen and how.
In Beethoven's later sets of variations, he finds ways around this restriction.
But here he not only holds to it.
He finds a way to really use it to his benefit.
With the interest really taken out of the area--harmony,
and, to some extent, structure in general--
that is usually so central to his music,
he can focus his energies exclusively on, on lyricism,
on the detail and the beauty of the figuration,
on conveying the feeling that the
theme, in being variously ornamented, is transformed.
It's an entirely novel notion for a Beethoven first
movement that the narrative of the music relies not
on harmony or on motivic development but on embroidery.
Which, of course, helps explain why Chopin liked it so much.
Chopin who more than anyone, could make embroidery
seem like the highest of all art forms.
The variation set as a form is not anywhere near
as essential an aspect of classical style as is sonata form.
But still, by the time Beethoven Opus 26 comes
along there is a kind of a tradition in place.
If the theme is not especially quick, the first several
variations gradually increase the speed by decreasing the note values.
Perhaps then there was a minor key variation.
Then a variation in a truly slow tempo in a floridly vocal--operatic even--style.
And then there's a faster variation to wrap things up.
Now, even in that extremely prosaic and bare-bones description, you can hear that
this is a form designed for various
sorts of display, rather than for dramatic effect.
Beethoven hews to this up to a point,
but he does have some tricks up his sleeve.
I think the time has come for us to listen to the theme.
[MUSIC]
Really, "beautiful" is the word for this.
In the previous lecture I said that the paradigm
for the Beethoven theme is utility over beauty, that he
builds his themes for maximum possible motivic manipulation.
This theme fits neither that nor really any of the other Beethoven clichĂŠs.
It is not clipped or gritty or even daring, really.
It is beautiful.
For a theme that unabashedly lovely, however,
it does have one peculiarity, and this one is very typical of Beethoven.
It is filled with subito pianos.
Now the subito piano is the sudden return to a soft
dynamic after either a crescendo or a period of louder playing--
a return to that dynamic without warning.
The lack of warning is the critical aspect.
The power of the subito piano comes from the
feeling of the natural trajectory of the phrase being interrupted,
of having the rug pulled out from under you.
Unsurprisingly, Beethoven absolutely loved doing this.
I mean, he really practically invented the idea.
The notion that this is central to Beethoven's
language is really so accepted among performers, so axiomatic,
that I think we sometimes overestimate its importance.
Sometimes I think he either simply forgot to notate the diminuendo that precedes the
piano, or he really just assumed that the player would understand it to be implied.
But very often he not only means it, it is
the aspect of the phrase which gives it its character.
Certainly that's the case here.
The subito pianos, and there are so many of
them, they save the theme from a slightly generic sweetness,
which Beethoven would have absolutely detested.
Listen to this fragment of the theme without the pianos.
[MUSIC]
And now here it is, with the subito pianos.
[MUSIC]
It lends the theme an interest that it might not otherwise have.
This is a balancing act for a composer.
A certain neutrality is a useful tool in a theme that gets a set of variations,
because it means that it will be easy to do a lot to it.
If it has too much inherent character, it can't
easily be altered while remaining, in any meaningful way, itself.
But, on the other hand, if the theme doesn't have enough in it to hold the
interest of the listener to a sufficient degree
in the first place, the whole form collapses.
With the addition of the subito
pianos, Beethoven really threads that needle perfectly.
To take you through the movement just briefly:
The first variation aims to give the impression
of being improvised, moving from register to register.
[MUSIC]
The second again increases the motion of the music, just according to the custom.
[MUSIC]
The third is in the parallel minor, as per tradition, and it is fittingly brooding.
This is the first time that the music takes a real turn into a new direction.
[MUSIC]
The fourth, which returns to the major, has a gently playful,
almost impish quality--again, something new.
[MUSIC]
And the fifth finally brings the movement to close on a more ruminative,
or really even a nostalgic note.
[MUSIC]
Apologies for the Cliff Notes version. Anyway, this deviates if
only slightly, from the standard sequence of variations I discussed earlier.
And, it's a subtle thing but I've always felt that since this work, as a whole,
is totally lacking in unifying devices, the variations
that comprise the first movement, in an admittedly
highly vague way, mimic the four movements of an early-period Beethoven sonata.
The theme in the first two variations, which follow
a rather clear trajectory, make up the "first movement."
The minor variation, which stops the forward momentum that has been building
steadily up to that point and changes the character of its music entirely--
that's the "slow movement."
The fourth variation, which introduces some gentle humor and
also makes more of the dancing aspect of
the three beats to a bar, becomes the "minuet."
And the final variation with its beautiful serenity is very much in the grazioso
rondo style that Beethoven utilized in so many of those first 13 sonatas.
Now, this theory could easily be overstated.
I'm not at all sure it's even something Beethoven did consciously,
but given that the listener's attention is absolutely not
being directed where it normally is in a Beethoven first movement,
the ear, by nature, looks elsewhere for an organizing principle.
And part of the magic of this first movement is that
even though sets of variation really don't come much shorter than
this, it feels totally complete with a very definite emotional trajectory,
even if the harmonic one, as discussed, is not at all compelling.
For the second movement,
Beethoven gives us a scherzo.
The sonata is formally already so unconventional by this point,
the listener can't have any real expectation for what's coming.
But it's worth noting that placing the scherzo or minuet second,
and not third, is pretty well unprecedented for Beethoven in 1801.
He has never done it in a piano sonata, and
only once in a chamber music work, the Quartet Opus 18
Number 5, which is modelled really very deliberately on Mozart's quartet
in the same key, and thus not really an example of anything.
Until now, in Beethoven's conception, the minuet or scherzo comes third.
Moving it up as he does here, it's not a huge deal.
But in doing so, and in consequently placing the slow movement third,
he takes another baby step toward re-weighting the work as a whole--
away from the top, and towards the conclusion, as we discussed last time.
Now, after the unhurried, almost
dreamy nature of the first movement,
the message of the scherzo seems to be, "snap out of it."
[MUSIC]
It's definitely meaningful that Beethoven chooses a scherzo here--
and not a minuet, which is definitely a less natural fit for his personality.
It gives the piece a jolt of energy, and as compelling
as the first movement is, it feels as if Beethoven
is now fully asserting himself for the first time in the piece.
More importantly, it acts as
a buffer between the first and third movements, neither
of which are really even remotely in a hurry.
That is, however, just about the only thing that
the first and third movements of the sonata share.
That, and the fact that each is unprecedented.
For the third movement of Opus 26 is a funeral march--
yet more evidence of Chopin's affection for the piece since his
"four unruly children" sonata also has a funeral march as its slow movement.
And there simply isn't any other work which
could have been Chopin's inspiration in this regard.
Beethoven titled the movement
"Marcia funebre sulla morta d'un eroe"--
funeral march on the death of a hero.
The title makes it doubly clear that this is a kind
of a dress rehearsal for the funeral march from the Eroica Symphony,
written four years later and one of the most impressive,
most iconic, and simply most enormous movements from the middle period.
Now, composers had certainly written funeral music before.
Mozart's Masonic funeral music comes to mind.
And Handel wrote his famous Dead March from the
oratorio Saul, which is, technically a funeral march.
But, speaking of what we associate with the term today--
a somber processional piece of music in a
minor key, making frequent use of dotted rhythms--
I really believe this is the earliest example.
Certainly, it is the earliest example of a
funeral march as part of a multi-movement work.
And while this movement is no longer
in the public consciousness, it obviously made an
impression in its own day as it and not
the slow movement of the Eroica Symphony was
played in an orchestrated version at Beethoven's own funeral.
Here is the opening.
[MUSIC]
Somehow, coming after the first movement,
which is so ornate and free-flowing, and the
second movement, which is all impetuosity,
the immovability of this music, its
inexorable quality, is all the more effective.
Again, somehow the fact that the movements of this work have
nothing to do with each other becomes one of its greatest strengths.
Amazingly, there's still more innovation to come.
The middle section of the slow movement begins as follows.
[MUSIC]
This is clearly ceremonial music, with a piano imitating
first a timpani roll and then a brass fanfare.
Now, while it would be a stretch to call this "program music,"
clearly this is meant to be specifically evocative of not just feelings,
which so much music is, but of a situation--which is new to Beethoven.
It's interesting that, with this movement, Beethoven's toe-
dipping into the programmatic results in music which is
not more expressive but actually somewhat more stiff and
stilted than many of the great early slow movements.
It's as if in writing this movement he was
fascinated in an idea that he remained somewhat uneasy with.
It's really only in the brief coda
of the movement that the grief begins to sound genuine rather than ceremonial.
[MUSIC]
The last movement of Opus 26 never fails to, to warm my heart.
If you buy into the idea of this work being divided into two halves,
and if the second movement seemed to regard the first with a bit
of disdain, the last movement acts as a consolation after the funeral march.
Not that it is in the least saccharine--its principal quality is wit.
But it still provides a sense of release, a kind of, a catharsis.
Here again is the conclusion of the funeral
march, and then the beginning of the last movement.
[MUSIC]
If I were to try to explain to you why these
movements belong together, what structural
role the last plays, vis-a-vis the third, I would fail.
It is the genius of Beethoven, though, that even when
he sets aside the template he had used for his entire
compositional career, even when he's really making it up
as he goes along, his instinct for narrative, his intuitive
understanding of the emotional impact of his music, is
so strong, so unimpeachable, that everything that occurs feels inevitable.
The unruly children do in fact belong together.
So that is Opus 26.
I would be hard pressed to think of another single
work of Beethoven in which he introduces so many new ideas.
Many of them did indeed prove to be one-offs,
but in total they represent a new willingness
to view the sonata as, if not a blank
canvas, at least an open-ended genre of terrific possibility.
This new attitude was probably the major ingredient required
to produce this lovely and, frankly, slightly peculiar work.
And it opened the door to the literally unpredictable masterpieces that were to follow.
Let's take a short break for a review question.
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