[MUSIC] Given the opus number and the time of its composition, Beethoven clearly viewed the Sonata Opus 28, the "Pastoral"-- not nearly as noxious of a name, although still not the composer's-- as the last of a series of four, following the three we've already discussed. I've always been a bit bemused by this, because whereas Opus 26 and 27 seem out to break as many rules as possible, Opus 28's mission seems to be to show just how much room there still is for innovation and imagination in the old model. It is, in its way, very daring, but it embraces the tradition that the previous three works so emphatically rejected: sonata allegro, followed by a slow movement, scherzo, and ultimately rondo. Probably the most remarkable feature of Opus 28 is its nearly uninterrupted placidity. It is, ironically, single-minded in its placidity. Unlike the "Moonlight," there is genuine character contrast, as well as drama within each movement. But there is a general since of peace, of a touch of reserve which persists for nearly the entire work. This is the reason that the title does feel appropriate-- and the same, by the way, holds true for the more famous symphony of the same name. In both these works Beethoven was content for the harmonic content to unfold sometimes very slowly. And "unfold" is the key word here. It's not just the rate of harmonic motion is often very slow. It's the sense that Beethoven is able to convey that this motion is taking place naturally, without him pulling the strings. And Beethoven was often very content to play puppet master, moving his music in directions which seem anything but preordained, inevitable. The sonata is in D major, and the work begins with a D pedal point. This note is repeated an amazing 74 times in the bass, before he finally moves away from it. So, even though there is harmonic movement over that period, we remain tethered to the tonic-- which Beethoven will leave only when he's good and ready, only with really great reluctance. [MUSIC] The quiet insistence of this pedal point, plus the immensely long, arching melodic lines, are what makes this special, what give the movement such a sense of inevitability. Beethoven also shows amazing skill in his overlapping of the lines. The opening phrase, for example, is a somewhat irregular ten bars long. And though I've been playing this sonata on and off for nearly 20 years, I've never been able to decide definitively whether these ten bars divide into 4 + 6, or 6 + 4, or if the first two form an upbeat. Ultimately I've come to feel that the ambiguity is deliberate, that because we so rarely feel in a clear-cut way that we are at either the beginning or the end of a phrase, he is able to create the illusion of endless melody. Again, pastoral. The slow progress of the harmony in this work comes to the fore in a rather remarkable passage in the development of the first movement. After an impassioned episode, in which the tonality actually changes rather quickly, Beethoven firmly lands on an F-sharp, and holds onto it-- again a pedal point-- for an unbelievable 38 measures. And, for most of this time, there's nothing else. First he eliminates other harmonies, then melody disappears. Finally, he all but removes rhythm from the equation. We are just left with this relentlessly repeated F-sharp, which is not the tonic, not the dominant, not the sub-dominant, but really, a harmonic visitor from a foreign country. [MUSIC] In a work which is primarily becalmed, this is just extraordinary. In its own quiet way, this passage is just as disorienting as anything in the "Moonlight" Sonata. By taking us to a harmonic place we don't expect to be, keeping us there remorselessly, and then depriving us of all other musical elements, Beethoven is using the construct of the sonata form to maximum effect. He is playing with our expectations. And in doing so, without any great fanfare, he makes us feel utterly lost. I cannot think of any other classical work that has a pedal point this long. Which is to say, it would be extraordinary even if it were simply on the tonic, but by putting it in F-sharp, the mediant in D major, this really brings it off the charts. Now, at the very end of what I just played, which is the end of the pedal point, Beethoven writes a fermata, asking the pianist to hold the final chord indefinitely. When the chord is finally released, this is what happens. [MUSIC] This is very, very beautiful, even moving in its simplicity. But still there is something perfunctory about it. As we talked about in the first lecture, the final V - I of the development is supposed to be one of the main events in the sonata form. Here though, after stretching an ostensibly less critical moment beyond all reason, he almost trivializes the return of the tonic, the return of the opening theme. This again may suggest that the conventions of classicism, of sonata form, were growing a bit wearisome to Beethoven. But most of all, it is yet another amazing example of Beethoven's capacity for manipulating time. When the moment we are conditioned to wait for goes by without fanfare, whereas a moment that needn't exist at all, is given all the space in the world, our perception of the way time passes is altered. That Beethoven does this in the middle of a movement, a movement that seems to promise total rhythmic regularity at its outset, makes the effect all the more spectacular. People often talk rightly about Beethoven and infinity, and I think this is one of the principal reasons. More than any composer before or since, he's able to bring us into an altered state, an altered mode of perception. And as we see in this sonata, he can do so without being, in any obvious sense, radical. There are other terrific moments in Opus 28, such as the very end in which the work's potential energy finally turns kinetic, with caution finally thrown to the wind. It's a novel idea, at least at this point, that the coda of a multi-movement work should address something that has been so far unresolved, not just in that movement, but in the whole work. And again, it shows Beethoven even if in a more modest way, tinkering with the structure of the sonata. But each time I play this work or listen to it, it is that amazing endless F-sharp that lingers in my memory. It really acts as a metaphor for Beethoven's stubbornness, his individuality, and ultimately his force of will. So despite its more traditional trappings, Opus 28 still finds Beethoven looking for new meaning in the piano sonata. Never again from this point on was he to write a sonata that did not, in one way or another, point the way forward. We will see plenty of evidence of that next week when we look at the sonatas of 1809. See you then, looking forward.
