(MUSIC) When I say that this rondo functions as expected, a big part of that is the way its three main sections – the A, the B, and the C – interact with one another. Not only do the episodes come exactly where one expects them, they provide the contrasts of character that they are supposed to. The B episode – the first of the movement’s three forays into major keys – brings a brightness, a straightforward energy which acts as a foil to the simmering, anxious discontent of the A section. (MUSIC) And then the C episode is something else again: warm and consoling. (MUSIC) Here, the reference to the slow movement is unmissable. We are now in the same key, A-flat major (MUSIC), and the melodic contour – rising fourths set against falling fifths – is nearly a quotation. (MUSIC) So Beethoven is concerned with binding this movement to the rest of the sonata, but not in a way that compromises, upsets, or even tweaks the form of the movement. However elegant these connections might be, this is Rondo 101. Well, maybe 101.5. This movement has one other terrific unifying feature – a feature that unifies the movement itself, AND simultaneously ties it to the other two. After the first B episode, the transition passage back to the A features a downward scale, over a dominant, G: (MUSIC). We sit on that chord (MUSIC) for a good long time before returning to the A section, and that – that cessation of motion, in the midst of an otherwise motion-filled movement, is a kind of reference to the first movement’s hyperdramatic fermatas, which in several cases lead back to the slow music of the introduction. (MUSIC) When the rondo’s C episode ends, again taking us back to the A section, we have a dramatically extended version of the same thing – a passage over a dominant pedal, culminating in a downward scale and a long fermata. (MUSIC) That fermata is even more dramatic – the much longer lead-up to it creates more expectation, and this time, I think it’s pretty clear that the fermata is a riff on the ones from the first movement. Beethoven is gradually building towards something, and in my reading of the piece, anyway, these dramatic, stop-everything transitions make each return of the A section more fraught than the one before. It’s still ambiguous, but the desperation in it is coming more and more to the fore. After the final A, we have a coda. (MUSIC) This seems headed towards swift resolution, but Beethoven, as usual, has other ideas. For a third time, we have a downward plunge followed by a fermata. But whereas the first two simply brought us back to the home territory of C minor and the A section (MUSIC), this last one takes us to very unknown, very uncertain terrain. (MUSIC) None of the previous scales resolved – they ended stubbornly on dominant fermatas (MUSIC), which were answered, half-satisfyingly, by the return of the A: (MUSIC). But this most recent scale (MUSIC), this one knocks us off course entirely. Bringing us to a new key, A-flat major. (MUSIC) A new, old key, to be precise, as A-flat is both the key of the central, C episode (MUSIC), and of the slow movement. (MUSIC) So this is recollection. Brilliantly, it is a recollection not only of the second movement, through its key, but also, in its haltingness, a recollection of the first. This music is not actually in a slower tempo, but it has a much slower rate of motion than most of the rest of the movement, reminding us of the way the first movement wove the slow music of the introduction into the relentlessly driven Allegro. This may be Rondo 101, but Beethoven is always thinking bigger – always interested in the overall architecture, and in the psychological effect of the music. But after this reminiscence – one simultaneously eerie and touching – Beethoven brings the hammer down, with one final downward scale. (MUSIC) This conclusion is Beethoven in his ruthless mode. Those three previous scales (MUSIC), they had each asked a question; this final one (MUSIC) provides an uncompromising, brutal answer, and in doing so, brushes aside the ambiguity that Beethoven had introduced in this finale. The fierce determination of the first movement is really the character that defines this remarkable sonata, and Beethoven restores it, with a vengeance, at the last moment. So that is the “Pathetique” sonata. When I lectured on the Appassionata, I said that that sonata was, in a sense, cursed by its own ubiquity. When a piece is ever-present in that way, it becomes very difficult to hear it properly-- you hear it as an iconic object, not as a piece of music. So if the Pathetique Sonata’s popularity has, in fact, dipped slightly in recent years, it may just be a blessing in disguise. I know that as a performer, if I step away from a piece that I’ve played many times, when I come back to it, I’m struck by qualities in it that I had previously missed, because I was simply too close to it – kind of like looking at a Monet painting without the necessary distance. And I think much the same is true of the listening process as well. If we hear a piece too often – if we're too primed for what’s coming next, all the way through – it becomes very difficult to experience the piece’s twists and turns as significant events, seismic events even. The Pathetique Sonata is a work filled with seismic events – events whose aftershocks altered sonata form for later generations of composers. Coming to a work with open ears, an open mind, and most of all, an open heart, should be the goals of any listener. In the case of a work such as the Pathetique, if those goals are achieved, the rewards are pretty extraordinary.
