Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's
Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major,
Op.An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...
101, was written in 1816 and was dedicated to the
pianistA pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
BaronBaron is a title of nobility. The word baron comes from Old French baron, itself from Old High German and Latin baro meaning " man, warrior"; it merged with cognate Old English beorn meaning "nobleman"...
ess Dorothea Ertmann. This
piano sonataA piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...
runs for about 20 minutes and consists of four
movementA movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
s:
- Etwas lebhaft, und mit der innigsten Empfindung. (Somewhat lively, and with innermost sensitivity.) Allegretto, ma non troppo
- Lebhaft. Marschmäßig. (Lively. Moderate march.) Vivace alla marcia
- Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll. (Slow and longingly) Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto
- Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr und mit Entschlossenheit. (Swiftly, but not too much, and with determination) Allegro
Composition
The Piano Sonata No. 28, Op. 101 is the first of the series of Beethoven's "Late Period"
sonataSonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
s, when his music moved in a new direction toward a more personal, more intimate, sometimes even an introspective, realm of freedom and fantasy. In this period he had achieved a complete mastery of form, texture and tonality and was subverting the very conventions he had mastered to create works of remarkable profundity and beauty. It is also characteristic of these late works to incorporate contrapuntal techniques (e.g.
canonIn music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
and
fugueIn music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
) into the
sonata formSonata form is a large-scale musical structure used widely since the middle of the 18th century . While it is typically used in the first movement of multi-movement pieces, it is sometimes used in subsequent movements as well—particularly the final movement...
.
Beethoven himself described this sonata, composed in the town of
BadenBaden is a historical state on the east bank of the Rhine in the southwest of Germany, now the western part of the Baden-Württemberg of Germany....
, just south of
ViennaVienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, during the summer of 1816, as "a series of impressions and reveries." The more intimate nature of the late sonatas probably has some connection with his deafness, which by this stage was almost total, isolating him from society so completely that his only means of communicating with friends and visitors was by means of a notebook.
For the first time Beethoven used the German term
Hammerklavier to refer to the piano (although it was the next of his sonatas,
Op. 106Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 is a piano sonata widely considered to be one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among one of the great piano sonatas...
, that became widely known as the
Hammerklavier sonata).
This was the only one of his 32 sonatas that Beethoven ever saw played publicly; this was in 1816, and the performer was a bank official and musical dilettante.
First movement
The
tempoIn musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
marking for the opening movement,
Etwas Lebhaft und mit innigsten Empfindung is roughly translated as "rather lively and with the warmest feeling," a marking which seeks to convey something of the romantic, elegiac aura of this opening movement. The adoption of this more subjective, personalised marking breaks away from the conventional tempo markings and demands a more intuitive engagement between the performer and the music, which would have been especially important to Beethoven as the interpretation of his music was left in the hands of the performers of the day because of his deafness.
Though the sonata is marked as being in A major, Beethoven does not write any satisfying cadences on the tonic key; the exposition and development do not include a single root position A major chord. The first tonic chord appears at the end of the recapitulation, and even then is blunted by the omission of the fifth scale degree.
The
codaCoda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
draws to an end with the beautiful, meditative melodies in the middle register supported by an embellishment of the
E majorE major is a major scale based on E, with the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has four sharps .Its relative minor is C-sharp minor, and its parallel minor is E minor....
chord (in the higher register) which creates a delicate, ponderous resonance.
Second movement
The second movement takes the form of a vigorous romantic march characterized by a daring, formidable and clamorous network of dotted
rhythmRhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s and harmonic dislocation. The effect can be disconcerting, alternating between static and accelerando and fusing seemingly distant and irrational musical motives. Erratic dynamics reinforce the eccentric rhythmic and contrapuntal forces. The opening voice-leading, tonal progressions and hypermetric patterns provide the model for the duration of the A-section.
Third and fourth movements
The third movement acts somewhat like an introduction to the fourth movement, perhaps akin to the nearly static "
IntroduzioneIn music, the introduction is a passage or section which opens a movement or a separate piece. In popular music this is often abbreviated as intro...
" middle movement of the
Waldstein, Sonata No. 21The Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, also known as the Waldstein, is considered to be one of Beethoven's greatest piano sonatas, as well as one of the three particularly notable sonatas of his middle period . The sonata was completed in the summer of 1804...
. Strikingly, the opening melody of the first movement is recalled just as the third movement nears its conclusion. Downward
arpeggioAn arpeggio is a musical technique where notes in a chord are played or sung in sequence, one after the other, rather than ringing out simultaneously...
s accelerate upward, then trills move upward. The concluding
fugueIn music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....
of the fourth movement leaps forth
mit Entschlossenheit.
See also
- Piano history and musical performance
The piano has evolved technologically more than any other musical instrument, giving rise to difficult issues involving the performance of music written for earlier pianos.-Background:The earliest pianos by Cristofori The piano has evolved technologically more than any other musical instrument,...
- Beethoven's unusual pedal direction in the third movement.
External links
- A lecture by András Schiff
András Schiff is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist, who has won a number of awards including the Grammy and made numerous recordings.- Biography :...
on Beethoven's piano sonata op. 101
- Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 28, Op. 101, Creation history and discussion of musical content at Raptus Association
- Discussion and performance of Op. 101 by Mark Salman.
- For a public domain recording of this sonata visit Musopen
- concert performance (pt 1) by Vladimir Horowitz
Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz was a Russian-American classical virtuoso pianist and minor composer. His technique and use of tone color and the excitement of his playing were legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Life and early...
- concert performance (pt 2) by Vladimir Horowitz
Vladimir Samoylovich Horowitz was a Russian-American classical virtuoso pianist and minor composer. His technique and use of tone color and the excitement of his playing were legendary. He is widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.-Life and early...