(MUSIC) So, we’ve had this exposition of highly unified material, without a single respite from the frenetic motion. But when it stops, it STOPS. (MUSIC) This absolute cessation of the motion, after it’s being going and going and going, has a powerful psychological effect on the listener. Because we’ve had an exposition which, in its constant forward march, sets up so little contrast, when the music grinds to a halt, I think the listener half expects the return of the introduction. (MUSIC) This has never been done – no slow introduction has ever been repeated along with the exposition, or rather, as part of the exposition. And yet, the way this sonata is built, with its slight formal ungainliness, it would seem perfectly logical – the introduction as the animal’s fourth leg: an integral part of the exposition, not an addition to it. It WOULD be logical, but it’s not what happens. Instead: (MUSIC) The repeat takes us back to the beginning of the allegro, omitting the introduction. There is, it has to be said, some debate on this point. There is no surviving manuscript of this sonata, so we don’t have a truly “original” source. The first edition has the repeat going back to the start of the allegro, as I just demonstrated it. It is true that, from looking at sonatas that do have surviving manuscripts, we know that there are plenty of mistakes in these first editions. (Beethoven’s handwriting was notoriously sloppy, making it almost impossible to reproduce with 100% accuracy, and by the time the pieces were published, he was invariably preoccupied with new work, and thus uninterested in the time-consuming and, yes, uninteresting business of making corrections.) So a number of very distinguished pianists have come to the conclusion that the location of the repeat is an error, and go back to the beginning of the sonata, repeating the whole grave and then the allegro exposition. One can never know for sure, but I tend to think this is a mistake. It is true that these first editions are far from the last word in textual precision, but if Beethoven really had meant for this sonata to repeat the introduction, that would have been a move so surprising – unprecedented, truly – I have to believe that he would have made bloody sure that it was correctly notated. And, as we are about to see, repeating only the allegro – which, really, shuts down our suspicions about the grave having been part of the exposition itself – that only makes the form of the movement more ambiguous and interesting. But the fact that this point is so contentious is in itself evidence of how ambiguous and surprising the movement really is! So again, when the repeat comes, the matter seems to be settled: however powerful the introduction is, however much it provides a counterweight which nothing else in the exposition does, it is an add-on to the sonata form – it is external to the structure. Which makes the end of the exposition, the second ending, and the move into the development all the more radical. (MUSIC) That is a shock. Again, all sorts of pieces – piano trios, string quartets, symphonies – had slow introductions, prior to this sonata. But for that material to reappear in the body of the movement, was all but unheard of. The only example I can think of is Mozart’s string quintet in D Major, K. 593, where the stately opening returns near the end of the movement. But that was not so much a precedent as the exception that proves the rule – a sleight-of-hand, not the invention of a new form. No, these slow introductions, they are external to the structure. They exist merely to add weight and import to movements that might otherwise be lacking in those departments. But the Pathetique’s introductions – and this is the part that is truly revolutionary-- it is simultaneously external AND internal to the sonata form. External because, as that repeat revealed, the allegro exposition, however one-note it might be, is a fully intact sonata exposition. Internal because the introduction, in addition to its role in balancing out the exposition, it's an integral part of what gets developed in the development – and beyond, as you’ll see. Now, this development is sort of sensational for reasons beyond the intrusion of that introduction. (MUSIC) In a matter of a few measures, we have modulated away from a G minor – a more-or-less expected key area – to E minor, which is unexpected, to put it mildly. (MUSIC) That is a lightning fast modulation between two such unrelated keys, and it adds to the sense of dislocation that the reemergence of the slow material has already created. Once this astonishing modulation has been completed, we’re launched back into the allegro. (MUSIC) This is significant, and highly dramatic, because while this (MUSIC) is a clear riff on the first theme of the allegro (MUSIC), this (MUSIC) is a barely-altered version of this (MUSIC) from the introduction. So it’s not just that the introduction reemerges, or intrudes on the proceedings; it is material to be developed, right alongside material from the exposition proper. This is a further argument on the side of the introduction being “internal”, or perhaps “integral” to the structure. The end of the development is very traditional – finally, something traditional! We get a very long dominant pedal (MUSIC), which leads us back home. (MUSIC) As you can hear, when the return comes, it’s the return of the allegro, without the slow introduction. So that’s another argument for the introduction as EXTERNAL to the structure – and, I’d add, an argument that the repeat is correctly placed in the first edition. If the introduction was truly a part of the exposition, it should be in the recapitulation as well.
