Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)
Template:Short description Template:Infobox musical composition
Template:Use dmy dates The Piano Sonata No. 29 in [[B-flat major|BTemplate:Music major]], Op. 106 (known as the Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, or more simply as the Hammerklavier) by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed in 1817 and published in 1818. The sonata is widely viewed as one of the most important works of the composer's third period and a pivotal work between his third and late period.Template:Sfn It is also considered to be Beethoven's most technically challenging piano composition and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire. The first documented public performance was in 1836 by Franz Liszt in the Salle Érard in Paris to an enthusiastic review by Hector Berlioz.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Background
Prior to the creation of the Hammerklavier sonata, the years between 1807 and 1812 were considered one of Beethoven's most productive period. During that time, he composed four symphonies (Nos. 5 through 8), three piano sonatas (opp. 78–81a), the Piano Concerto No. 5, "Emperor", the Mass in C major, and various chamber works. After this period, Beethoven's output reduced drastically, although scholars disagree on when exactly this period of decreased activity began, with the date ranging from 1812 to 1816.Template:Sfn
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The earliest sketches for the sonata likely date from December 1817,Template:Sfn although the original manuscript is now lost.Template:Sfn Amongst the sketches for the first movement is an idea for an abandoned cantata for Archduke Rudolph, using the text 'Vivat Rudolphus' and a melody resembling that of the 'Hammerklavier' sonata.Template:Sfn The sonata was planned from the beginning to be a tribute to Archduke Rudolph. This intention was confirmed in a letter dated 3 March 1819, in which Beethoven wrote that the sonata had long been "wholly intended in my heart' for the archduke".Template:Sfn The process of its creation was considered the longest for any of his piano works, and it ushered in a period during which Beethoven composed several large-scale works including the Missa Solemnis, the Ninth Symphony, and the Diabelli Variations.Template:Sfn Musicologist William Kinderman attributed this delay to his preoccupation with his nephew Karl van Beethoven, his health problems,Template:Sfn and an increasing focus on each of his major new compositions, usually large-scale works.Template:Sfn
The sonata was originally planned to be published in 1819 in Vienna and London with the support of Ferdinand Ries, Beethoven's former pupil and friend who had arranged for a London edition to be published simultaneously as the planned Viennese edition by Artaria.Template:Sfn The Vienna edition was published in October 1819, while the London edition appeared in December of the same year,Template:Sfn with a dedication to Antonie Brentano instead of Archduke Rudolph of the Vienna edition.Template:Sfn The London edition of the sonata was published in two parts: the first part, Grand Sonata, contains the first three movements with the second and third movement in reversed order, and the second part is the fourth movement, titled Introduction & Fugue.Template:Sfn The reason for this rearrangement was purely economical, as Charles Rosen believed Beethoven's sole concern for publishing the sonata in London was to obtain additional financial benefit.Template:Sfn
The nickname Hammerklavier, a German neologism meaning piano, originated with Beethoven's desire to use German terms to replace Italian terms in a "burst of patriotic enthusiasm".Template:Sfn<ref name=Crumey /> In a letter to Sigmund Anton Steiner on 23 January 1817, Beethoven wrote: "henceforth on all our works...instead of pianoforte Hammerklavier is used".Template:Sfn Only the Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101, and the Sonata No. 29 is published as "für das Hammerklavier" ("for the piano"),Template:Sfn and over time the nickname has become associated with the latter.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Structure
Template:Listen The piece contains four movements, a structure used by Beethoven in his earlier piano sonatas. However, the order of the inner movements are reversed, with the Scherzo placed before the Adagio sostenuto.Template:Sfn
In addition to the thematic connections within the movements and the use of traditional Classical formal structures, Charles Rosen has described how much of the piece is organised around the motif of a descending third (major or minor).Template:Sfn (Carl Reinecke had first remarked on this in 1897).<ref name=Crumey>Template:Cite web</ref> This descending third is quite ubiquitous throughout the work but most clearly recognizable in the following sections: the opening fanfare of the Allegro; in the scherzo's imitation of the aforementioned fanfare, as well as in its trio theme; in bar two of the adagio; and in the fugue in both its introductory bass octave-patterns and in the main subject, as the seven-note runs which end up on notes descended by thirds.
The Hammerklavier also set a precedent for the length of solo compositions (performances typically take about 40 to 45 minutes). While orchestral works such as symphonies and concerti had often contained movements of 15 or even 20 minutes for many years, few single movements in solo literature had a span such as the Hammerklavier's third movement.
Tempo
The sonata is the only sonata for which Beethoven provided metronome marks, given that the metronome had been patented by Johann Maelzel in 1815, and Beethoven was among the first composers to use the device.Template:Sfn The metronome mark was given at the beginning of a letter to Ferdinand Ries, dated 16 April 1819, that states the tempo of 138 BPM on the half note for the first movement.Template:Sfn This is considered so fast that it is routinely dismissed by performers based on theories that it was caused by a mistake from the composer, a faulty metronome, or Beethoven's deafness. Template:Sfn Charles Rosen points out that this „would be more or less a normal Allegro of a work by Mozart, the kind of tempo that Beethoven would have accepted as standard in the 1780s [although] the texture […] is more complex than most Mozart Allegros, and harder to play, but this is not a consideration that would have carried much weight with the composer.“ Template:Sfn Suggestions for revisions have come from Felix Weingartner, Ignaz Moscheles and Paul Badura-Skoda.Template:Sfn
I. Allegro
The first movement in [[B-flat major|BTemplate:Music-major]], marked Allegro, opens with a series of fortissimo [[B-flat major|BTemplate:Music-major]] chords, which form much of the basis of the first subject. After the first subject is spun out for a while, the opening set of fortissimo chords are stated again, this time followed by a similar rhythm on the unexpected chord of D major.Template:Sfn This ushers in the more lyrical second subject in the submediant (that is, a minor third below the tonic), G major.Template:Sfn A third and final musical subject follows, which exemplifies the fundamental opposition of BTemplate:Music and BTemplate:Music in this movement through its chromatic alterations of the third scale degree. The exposition ends with a largely stepwise figure in the treble clef in a high register, while the left hand moves in an octave-outlining accompaniment in eighth notes.
The development section opens with a statement of this final figure, except with alterations from the major subdominant to the minor, which fluidly modulates to a fugue in [[E-flat major|ETemplate:Music major]].Template:Sfn The fugato ends with a section featuring non-fugal imitation between registers, eventually resounding in repeated D-major chords. The final section of the development begins with a chromatic alteration of DTemplate:Music to DTemplate:Music. The music progresses to the alien key of B major, in which the third and first subjects of the exposition are played. The retransition is brought about by a sequence of rising intervals that get progressively higher, until the first theme is stated again in the home key of BTemplate:Music, signalling the beginning of the recapitulation.
There is debate whether ATemplate:Music or A should be played in measures 224-26, which is at the end of the development.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>Template:Sfn
In keeping with Beethoven's exploration of the potentials of sonata form, the recapitulation avoids a full harmonic return to BTemplate:Music major until long after the return to the first theme. The coda repetitively cites motives from the opening statement over a shimmering pedal point and disappears into pianississimo until two fortissimo BTemplate:Music major chords conclude the movement.
II. Scherzo: Assai vivace
The brief second movement includes a great variety of harmonic and thematic material. The scherzo's theme – which Rosen calls a humorous formTemplate:Sfn of the first movement's first subject – is at once playful, lively, and pleasant. The scherzo, in BTemplate:Music major, maintains the standard ternary form by repeating the sections an octave higher in the treble clef.Template:Sfn
The trio in [[B-flat minor|BTemplate:Music minor]], marked "semplice", is in binary form.Template:Sfn It borrows the opening theme from the composer's Eroica symphony and places it in a minor key. Following this dark interlude, Beethoven inserts a more intense presto section in [[duple meter|Template:Music meter]], still in [[B-flat minor|BTemplate:Music minor]],Template:Sfn which eventually segues back to the scherzo, marked "dolce".Template:Sfn After a varied reprise of the scherzo's first section, a coda with a meter change to cut time follows. This coda plays with the semitonal relationship between BTemplate:Music and BTemplate:Music, and briefly returns to the first theme before dying away.Template:Sfn
III. Adagio sostenuto
The slow movement is centred on FTemplate:Music minor, which is a third interval down from the BTemplate:Music major key of the first two movements.Template:Sfn It is Beethoven's longest slow movementTemplate:Sfn (e.g. Wilhelm Kempff played for approximately 16 minutes and Christoph Eschenbach 25 minutes). The movement has been called, among other things, a "mausoleum of collective sorrow",<ref>Wilhelm von Lenz, quoted in Template:Harvnb</ref> Paul Bekker called the movement "the apotheosis of pain, of that deep sorrow for which there is no remedy, and which finds expression not in passionate outpourings, but in the immeasurable stillness of utter woe".<ref>Bekker, Paul (1925). Beethoven (translated and adapted by Mildred Mary Bozman). J. M. Dent & Sons, p. 134.</ref> Wilhelm Kempff described it as "the most magnificent monologue Beethoven ever wrote".<ref>Schumann, Karl. Beethoven's Viceroy at the Keyboard in Celebration of Wilhelm Kempff's Centenary: His 1951–1956 Recordings of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonatas.</ref>
The movement opens with two A and CTemplate:Music octaves that was added just before publication.Template:Sfn The addition is said to provide a transition between the previous movement and the key of the slow movement, as well as relating to the opening of the first movement, second movement, and final fugue theme that all begin with a rising third interval.Template:Sfn Structurally, it follows traditional Classical-era sonata form, but the recapitulation of the main theme is varied to include extensive figurations in the right hand that anticipate some of the techniques of Romantic piano music. NPR's Ted Libbey writes, "An entire line of development in Romantic music—passing through Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, and even Liszt—springs from this music."Template:Sfn
IV. Introduzione: Largo... Allegro – Fuga: Allegro risoluto
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The movement begins with a slow introduction that serves to transition from the third movement.Template:Sfn The transition is achieved by modulating from DTemplate:Music major/BTemplate:Music minor to GTemplate:Music major/ETemplate:Music minor to B major/GTemplate:Music minor to A major, which modulates to BTemplate:Music major for the fugue. Dominated by falling thirds in the bass line, the music three times pauses on a pedal and engages in speculative contrapuntal experimentation, in a manner foreshadowing the quotations from the first three movements of the Ninth Symphony in the opening of the fourth movement of that work.
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After a final modulation to BTemplate:Music major, the main substance of the movement appears: a three-voice fugue in [[triple meter|Template:Music meter]].Template:Sfn The subject of the fugue can be divided itself into three parts: a tenth leap followed by a trill to the tonic; a 7-note scale figure repeated descending by a third; and a tail semiquaver passage marked by many chromatic passing tones, whose development becomes the main source for the movement's unique dissonance. Marked con alcune licenze ("with some licenses"), the fugue, one of Beethoven's greatest contrapuntal achievements, as well as making tremendous demands on the performer, moves through a number of contrasting sections and includes a number of "learned" contrapuntal devices, often, and significantly, wielded with a dramatic fury and dissonance inimical to their conservative and academic associations. Some examples: augmentation of the fugue theme and countersubject in a sforzando marcato at bars 96–117, the massive stretto of the tenth leap and trill which follows, a contemplative episode beginning at bar 152 featuring the subject in retrograde, leading to an exploration of the theme in inversion at bar 209.<ref>Willi Apel, "Retrograde," Harvard Dictionary of Music (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1969), p. 728.</ref>
Influence
The work was perceived as almost unplayable but was nevertheless seen as the summit of piano literature since its very first publication. Completed in 1818, it is often considered to be Beethoven's most technically challenging piano compositionTemplate:Sfn and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn
Felix Mendelssohn's Piano Sonata in BTemplate:Music major, Op. 106, is thought to have been influenced by the Hammerklavier sonata,Template:Sfn although the shared Opus number is coincidental. Mendelssohn's sonata has a similar opening fanfare in BTemplate:Music major, with a secondary theme in G major. The sonata's second movement is also a scherzo in [[duple meter|Template:Music]], and its third movement contains a transition into the fourth.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Orchestration
The composer Felix Weingartner produced an orchestration of the sonata in 1930.Template:Sfn In 1878, Friedrich Nietzsche had suggested such an orchestration:
In the lives of great artists, there are unfortunate contingencies which, for example, force the painter to sketch his most significant picture as only a fleeting thought, or which forced Beethoven to leave us only the unsatisfying piano reduction of a symphony in certain great piano sonatas (the great B-flat major). In such cases, the artist coming after should try to correct the great men's lives after the fact; for example, a master of all orchestral effects would do so by restoring to life the symphony that had suffered an apparent pianistic death.<ref>Friedrich Nietzsche. Human, All Too Human, § 173</ref>
However, Charles Rosen considered attempts to orchestrate the work "nonsensical".Template:Sfn
References
Citations
Sources
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Further reading
External links
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- "Sonata for piano (B-flat major) Op. 106", Work details, sound files, sketches, manuscripts, editions; Beethoven House, Bonn
- A lecture by András Schiff on Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 109, Part One, Part Two
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