1st mvt: Subverting Expectations until the Bitter End

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Del curso dictado por Curtis Institute of Music

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Part 2

70 calificaciones

Curtis Institute of Music

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Part 2

70 calificaciones

Welcome to Part 2 of Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas! I'm delighted to launch another set of new lectures of this course as Part 2. As before, this class is meant for people of all levels of experience with Beethoven's music (including no experience at all!). Remember that you are able to watch the lectures as many times as you like, at whatever pace is comfortable for you. As I’ve done with the first set of Beethoven lectures, I look forward to meeting with students—online and in person, in various cities. The dates and locations will be posted in the Announcements and Events section, as part of the course content. So please remember to check back there for details. In these four new lectures, we will explore the following sonatas: • Sonata Op. 2, No. 3 • Sonata Op. 13 (“Pathetique”) • Sonata Op. 53 (“Waldstein”) • Sonata Op. 90 The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation supports Curtis’s lifelong learning initiatives.

De la lección

Op. 13, "Pathetique"

The course continues with Beethoven's Op. 13 Sonata, nicknamed the "Pathétique." Known for its high drama and pathos, the "Pathétique" is a gem from Beethoven's early period and is one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas. In this lecture, Mr. Biss uncovers how Beethoven achieves these intense characters within the context of a classical sonata.

A Groundbreaking, Overexposed Masterwork4:02

1st mvt: The Slow Introduction as a Major Addition to Sonata Form6:46

1st mvt: An Exposition in Constant Upward Motion8:44

1st mvt: The Introduction's Complex, Revolutionary Role9:16

1st mvt: Subverting Expectations until the Bitter End5:56

2nd mvt: Beethoven at his most Sublimely Lyrical9:47

2nd mvt: The Emotional Power of Structural Simplicity7:03

3rd mvt: Introducing an Element of Ambiguity3:23

3rd mvt: Tying the Movement to the Rest of the Work, Devastatingly10:15

Conoce a los instructores

Jonathan Biss
Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies
Performance Faculty

(MUSIC)

Once we arrive at the recapitulation, it functions surprisingly normally – surprising, given

how strange and twisting this movement’s path generally is.

One quirk is the second theme: (MUSIC).

It comes back not in the tonic, (MUSIC),

but in the subdominant of F minor (MUSIC).

The second theme in the recap is normally a pivotal moment, because it’s the first

instance of material that had been OUT of the home key coming back IN the home key;

in a minor key sonata, it’s also usually the moment where what was in the major mode

the first time around is shifted into minor – a shift that tends to suggest resignation.

But in this case, the material was already in the minor mode the first time around (MUSIC),

and it’s not in the tonic this time either: (MUSIC) as opposed to (MUSIC).

So in no way does it fill the traditional second-theme role.

When the third theme comes, we have finally reached our C minor home – some home! – and

with it, Beethoven really brings the hammer down, establishing the key with a brutal certainty.

(MUSIC)

A conclusion seems imminent, at this point, but instead: (MUSIC).

Another interruption.

Another intrusion of the opening.

This time it is literally unprecedented – that Mozart Quintet had one reappearance of the

opening material, but two had simply never been done.

Until the end, Beethoven keeps us guessing, about what will come next, and about what

role this grave really plays in the piece.

As it always is with him, this is a case of a formal invention helping to establish the

emotional world of the piece, in this case, mysterious, turbulent,

and filled with anxious dread.

When this third iteration of the opening comes, he replaces what had been sforzando accents

at the beginnings of the phrases (MUSIC), with rests (MUSIC).

These silences really ratchet up the misterioso character of the music, which was pretty significant

to begin with.

The third of these phrases – once again, substantially longer than the first two –

brings us back to the allegro, and a brook-no-arguments conclusion.

(MUSIC)

Altogether, it’s one of the most wild, unpredictable documents of Beehoven’s early period.

And unlike that Mozart Quintet I mentioned, the Pathetique is not a one-off.

Rather, it’s a turning point, the moment at which the lines between the introduction

and the sonata form proper begin to blur.

Just a few years later, in the so-called “Tempest” sonata, Beethoven begins with, well, not an

“introduction”, not even a proper motive, but a very slow arpeggio, which comes back

again and again, expanding each time, and becoming increasingly incorporated into the

structure, increasingly invasive.

And then in the Lebewohl sonata of 1809, the slow introduction never returns per se,

but its material permeates the entire allegro.

And by the time the romantic generation comes along, the distinctions have nearly disappeared.

Chopin’s second sonata begins with a brief “Grave” passage which seems intended to

be a part of the repeated exposition, despite being in the wrong key and having little motivic

connection to the rest of the movement.

And Schumann’s F-sharp minor sonata has a slow introduction which reappears

not only in the first movement’s development, but in the second movement as well.

In these works, the formal rigor that is so essential in Mozart and Beethoven

has all but vanished.

When Beethoven played with the rules in the Pathetique, it was a psychological gambit,

employed to rattle the listener through upsetting his or her expectations.

But eventually he pushed that game so far, by the time the next generation of composers

came along, those expectations didn’t really exist any more,

certainly not in the same way.

As I’ve said before: Beethoven’s incredible ingenuity with sonata form

ultimately destroyed it.

With the first movement of the Pathetique, we see that process begin to unfold.

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