My Favourite Beethoven Piano Sonata - Musical Analysis

hi everybody you're probably guessing which sonata i will be talking about in this video to be honest it was quite difficult for me to name my video like this because i felt like i was betraying all my other beloved beethoven sonatas there are so many amazing ones and they're all so different which makes it really hard to choose a favorite one but at this moment in time maybe because i practiced a sonata for months and because it's such a thrilling experience to play it oneself and because i took a deep and fascinating look into it my favorite piano sonata by beethoven is the sonata opus 110 in a flat major [Music] [Music] this sonata is a multifaceted grandiose and touching work that was really dramaturgically conceptualized so it takes you through an incredibly exciting tragic moving but finally triumphant journey it's really one of the most powerful pieces of music that i know and i'll try to show you some interesting things about it i will talk a little bit about the piano sonata as a genre then i will introduce the sonata opus 110 and put it into the context of beethoven's life and work after that i will get right into the piece and analyze the different movements beethoven's piano sonaras are of course extremely important compositions not only for pianists who treat them like a bible but also for beethoven's work in general and since he was so influential also for the evolution of western music beethoven wrote piano sonatas during his entire life as a composer his first official sonata was published when he was around 24 and the last one when he was 51 six years before he died in 1827 so through these piano sundaras you can really discover the evolution of beethoven's music the piano sonata was a rather intimate genre and beethoven composed freely and experimentally in it the fact that he was an astonishing pianist and improviser helped of course the sonatas are really like a kind of personal musical diary of his often beethoven solved compositional problems or experimented with new ideas in his piano sonatas and that later helped him for works of other genres like the string quartet or the symphony but coming back to the genre of piano sonata i will briefly talk about the history of it through the work of beethoven so when beethoven began writing piano sonatas it was a rather young genre but it was already well established rich and quite elaborated composers who greatly influenced the development of the genre where kalphalip emmanuel bach whose sonatas beethoven discovered during his lessons as a young man and of course haydn who was very influential for many many composers at the time and soon mozart joined the game as well the piano sonata tended to be seen rather as a purely pianistic and virtuosic piece to practice the piano at home or to show off your instrumental skills but through composers like carl philip ivanova haydn mozart and later beethoven the genre developed into a more important serious expressive and so to say um noble genre like the string quartet and the symphony which were the main instrumental genres at the time the piano sonata being a more intimate private genre like i said was a more variable type of composition treated individually by different composers and by that i mean that although there were a few general guidelines composers were quite free and choosing things like the amount of movements the tempe the key and time signatures and so on on the other hand one thing that all the composers did was using the sonata form and now before i continue i have to make sure everyone knows what the sonata form is most of you watching will probably know what it is more or less but for those who don't or forgot i will quickly show a graphic which explains it and you can pause the video and of course there are lots of information on the internet that you can look up as well so when beethoven started writing his first piano sonatas the sonata form was already being used by composers mainly for first movements of symphonies string quartets or sonatas but it was never really a strict form but rather a rough model on which you could base your piece on the larger outline of the form the main sections of the form were defined but what happened inside of these sections and all the details were quite free exposition development and rupees had their clear functions but it was free for example how long the different sections were what harmonic progressions you would compose how many thematic ideas you would present and so on there was always a tension between a model and the individual freedom of a composer from the first sonatas on you can already notice that beethoven was striving for individuality he used the form relatively freely and each sonata was very different and it's interesting to look at the context in which beethoven started writing his sonatas because there are many things one doesn't immediately think about that are quite relevant for example at the time in germany purely instrumental music was seen as the highest form of music not vocal music and piano music was really the most popular thing on the sheet music market and simple things like the fact that during beethoven's early career the complete piano sonatas of haydn and mozart were published are important because of this beethoven could study the exemplary models so to say he could discover a lot of the great sonatas of his predecessors something haydn couldn't really do because you know it's different if you are hiding and you basically invent the piano sonata with carl philippe manuel bach or if you were a young composer and there were already great sonatas by carl philippe haydn or mozart before you so beethoven being able to do that contributed to his understanding of the genre of course but also to his wish to do something different and to find his own individual way of writing piano sonatas then there are other things like the modernization of the piano or the rather heated political situation in europe due to the french revolution and the wars and so on which i won't get into now but which all play a role for beethoven's life and work one last thing that i'll mention is that beethoven lived in a time in which the piano sonata changed a lot around 1800 there was a general consensus in the germanic music world that the piano sonata needed to evolve composers wanted to renew it make it richer and more complex bring in fresh ideas and so on beethoven was very important in bringing the piano sonata to the next level but remember that he wasn't all alone and that he is also a product of his time now back to his piano sonaras it's very very difficult to talk generally about them because every single one of them is truly unique grouping them according to different compositional periods of beethoven is also very difficult because it's hard to find characteristics that are shared by various sonatas of approximately the same time i know everybody always wants to put things in boxes but in this case you can't really say that there are these early sonatas that are like that then the middle period sonatas that are like that and all the late sonatas that are like this once you think you found a characteristic of let's say the early sonatas suddenly there's one early sonar in which the total opposite is true for example it's not a steady linear evolution like the first sonatas were rather simple and traditional and step by step sonara by sonara made them more complex and modern there are early sonatas that are quite classical and there are early sonatas which are very experimental or both at the same time there are middle periods and others which are very forward-looking in one way and rather backwards looking in another way late sonatas that are much more traditional than earlier ones and late sonatas which explore totally unknown territory and you know everything in between so as you see it's a difficult thing to talk about that being said the sonata we're going to talk about opus 110 is one of the last piano sonatas beethoven ever wrote and if you would compare let's say the first three sonatas and the last ones i think it's safe to say beethoven's sonatas became a lot more unconventional and individualized at the time he wrote the sonata opus 110 he had already experimented a lot with the genre he had often incorporated unusual types of movements or combined different types of music in his piano sonatas he had explored new formal concepts or new sound possibilities on the piano he elaborated the thematic and motific structures and cohesion and much more beethoven had turned the piano sonata into a genre that was deep grand modern vitrosic complex and poetic all at the same time the piano sonata really evolved with him the later development of the romantic piano sonatas but also piano writing in general of schubert schumann or brahms for example is unimaginable without beethoven and now let's talk a bit about the background of the sonata opus 110 [Music] so beethoven's last three piano sonatas opus 109 110 and 111 were planned as a group of sonatas for the berlin-based publisher schlesinger beethoven composed them between 1820 and 1822. he began working on the sonata opus 109 in early 1820 and delivered it in autumn of the same year after that he composed his piano bagatelles opus 119 and worked a lot on his mr solemnis opus 123 which originally had to be finished in march of that year in march 1821 beethoven promised to the publisher that the two piano sonatas opus 110 and 111 would soon be finished in reality he hadn't even started to work on them one reason for beethoven's struggle to work was that he was severely ill during the summer of 1821. he had a serious jaundice attack which made it impossible for him to compose but in the end he managed to finish opus 110 in the winter and opus 111 on which he worked on partly simultaneously shortly after these last sonatas are very special they are full of freedom intimacy vividness originality and have something transcendental to them i think they are some of the deepest music beethoven or anybody has ever written and really recommend listening to them if you don't know them already and now let's finally move on to the beautiful sonata opus 110 [Music] lasting around 20 minutes this piano sonata is not very long but feels really grand nevertheless it consists of three closely connected movements the interrelationships between the movements and the dramaturgy that's created through them are really crucial in this sonata in in haydn or mozart sonatas the different movements are related to one another of course but beethoven really pushed the idea that the individual movements are interdependent and really shape the larger arc of the whole work i would roughly describe this arch or dramaturgy as follows the first movement is a rather slow tender and serene movement this serenity is disturbed by the short very contrasting kind of strange and schedule like second movement this leads to the third movement which is further divided into four chapters first a sorrowful slow chapter which could be a sort of mourning for the loss of the peacefulness the order or balance of the first movement then comes an energetic fugue trying to return to that initial state this fugue then abruptly falls into an even more devastating slow chapter and finally gradually one last uplifting grandiose and victorious fugue appears which not only brings back the lost and desired serenity but surpasses it and ends the sonata in complete ecstasy we will examine this trajectory of the whole piano sonata in more detail when looking at each individual movement closely which we will do right now starting with the first one [Music] the opening movement is like i said a rather calm peaceful warm and beautiful movement its tempo marking moderato cantabile moto espressivo already indicates that as well as the key of a flat major which is rather warm and mellow key as usual for first movements its form is a sonata form we have an exposition a short development and a reprise with a very interesting twist what's interesting as well is that this movement is made out of very distinct materials that stay relatively unchanged but are combined in various ways so that they appear in new constellations let me explain by getting into more detail here we will begin with the exposition and more precisely with the main subject group the sonata starts with this soft string quartet-like opening this is the first theme here we have four voices playing in the same rhythm so it's the homophonic beginning it's very choral-like the most important aspect of this serene theme is its rhythm which will make it very recognizable during the development of this movement [Music] the important first two bars form the main theme of this movement and bar three and four can be considered as a variation and continuation of it these four opening bars make the first section of the main subject group [Music] [Music] this first section is characterized by the homophonic aspect and the rhythm of the main theme and we will see how beethoven will use it later with only little variation combining it with various elements now before we move on to the next section there's one important thing about the first theme we can't overlook let's examine the beginning of the melody by looking at the upper boss [Music] [Music] now what if i leave out the first note [Music] and if you know this sonata you will recognize that this is the theme of the fugue of the third movement the outline of this first main theme has the fugue theme hidden in it so it's really all connected and since the final fugue is truly the absolute goal of the sonata hiding the fugue theme in this very first theme reinforces the feeling of necessity of the whole process of this sonata this starting point in the first movement is the serenity that will be lost later the fugues are attempts to come back to this initial state so the fugue theme being motifically connected to this opening theme is very important now let's move on to the next section these following bars are very different than the previous ones it's not a homophonic four part writing but a clear and beautifully singing melody with a very classical accompaniment it's a totally different kind of music the only similarity between the two sections is the harmony which is still very simple by the way this is really a second theme it is more melodic and singable than the first theme but will not play an important role during the development of the sonata but on the other hand the accompaniment we see here this very simple mozart-like accompaniment and the left hand will reappear in different constellations [Music] so these bars form the second section of the main subject group it is characterized by a singing melody with simple and very recognizable accompaniment moving on to the third section which is again very different it's kind of the end point of this main subject group it feels like the place where we want it to arrive here we don't have thematic material anymore but instead these pianistic virtuosic figurations appear and create this sparkling warm and bright overall sound texture and this section sort of feels like a flourishing of some kind when it appears because of these rapid figurations which are to be played lightly and wander through the whole keyboard here again the harmony is the connecting element between the different sections it is basically identical to the harmony we had before [Music] so this is the third section characterized by these fast figurations as we saw the first subject group already contains three distinct sections with different kinds of music in them in all three of them we have very recognizable material that we will find in the whole movement moving forward this third section is not only an endpoint but also a bridge between the first subject group and the second one in that it modulates from the main key to the dominant key this leads to the secondary subject group in bar 20 which starts with this very bright shining and transparent two-voice polyphony this first passage again feels like a very different sound world than everything before the build up of the previous bars abruptly stops and brings these very high thin and descending lines [Music] these get denser and lead to yet another different section note that i speak a lot about various sections here but the music when played nicely doesn't feel chopped up or anything of course one section leads into another quite organically but the difference between them is still very recognizable i think in bars 23 and 24 we shortly have four part writing again reminding us of the very beginning of the sonata this leads to this chain of trills in which both hands get further and further away from each other expanding the register the tension increases and finally leads to this low e flat the dominant of a flat and this feels like we are finally fully in the new key of the dominant [Music] this is the beginning of this next strong and energetic section which consists of rising melody snippets and the chordal descending accompaniment this accompaniment is clearly connected to the second section we had in the main subject group the right hand gets higher and higher and creates this white space between the left hand until it reaches its high point with this c where the section ends and we return to a narrower register and to a four part writing similar to the beginning [Music] at this point the second subject group is ending after reinforcing the key of e flat major a couple of times we end up in bar 38 and then in bar 39 we have this quite abrupt shift to d flat which will then lead to the development of the sonata but before moving on to the development let's quickly recap what we discussed for the exposition as we saw this is a very rich exposition in which a lot of things happen in both the main subject group and the secondary subject group there are a lot of different sections with quite distinct sound worlds due to the very diverse material the exposition being so eventful already maybe explains why the development is rather short and simple in comparison [Music] [Music] so [Music] starting from bar 40 just looking at the score you can already notice that the development is much more consistent than the exposition it is actually not very agitated but seems rather stable especially after this exciting exposition this stability is mainly due to the construction of the development it consists of a two bar segment that is just repeated eight times this two bar segment consists of material we know by now the right hand plays a variation of the main theme which is clearly recognizable due to the identical rhythm the left hand plays the same type of accompaniment we saw in the second section of the main subject group and also the second subject group so here we see a combination of two elements that were separated before this is an example of what i mentioned earlier these two materials are not strongly varied but appear in a new constellation [Music] [Music] so [Music] the rhythmic consistency of these repeated bars make this development feel rather calm and stable furthermore there's the soft and almost unchanging dynamic and the slowly descending movement of the melody the only real motion happening during the development is harmonic and even that is not turbulent at all but rather simple so there is a feeling of relative stability during this short development which is interesting because in most sonatas the development is where the movement and excitement happens this can be explained by the already eventful exposition as i said and also by the rupees which is very special as we will see now the moment in which the reprise begins is always an important moment in a sonata especially with beethoven it's the goal at which the development aims at and leads to in this case although the development is quite static the reprise moment is still important it comes a bit as a surprise after many repetitions of this two-bar pattern the descending melody and the darkening harmony the reprise is quite suddenly introduced by these trills in bar 55 the ruprise then feels like revivifying the main theme reappears in the main key of course and most importantly it is now accompanied by the fast figurations we saw earlier this is again a new combination of material that was exposed at the beginning it shows both elements in a new light the theme gets more energy and life through the figurative accompaniment [Music] after a couple of bars both hands change roles so both elements appear in another register which shows them in yet another light and now the interesting thing happens usually in a reprise the harmony is stabilized the home key of the movement dominates the second subject group which was in the conflicting key of the dominant during the exposition is now also in the main key just like the main subject group the harmonic tension is solved so to say in this particular first movement the rubrics is harmonically very adventurous even for beethoven he first modulates to the subdominant key of d flat major which he reaches at the second section of the main subject group then turns this into a c-sharp minor to finally arrive in e major which is quite a distant key in a flat major [Music] the third section of the main subject group the figurations now appear in this new key which again gives them a new color beethoven stays in e major even until the secondary subject group begins but he somehow has to return to the home key of a flat major at some point and this happens right here it doesn't happen smoothly or gradually but there is just this sudden chromatic shift which is really very surprising when you listen to this movement after this shift comes this expressive rising gesture and finally the main key is reached [Music] it's very interesting that the rubrics is so remarkable the stability of the development is really overturned it could not have been just a regular rupees with this calm development it would have been too easy the whole serenity peacefulness and warmth of this movement is seen in another way because of this deviation in the rupees for me it's as if the strong shifts of character and mood that will occur later in the sonata are hinted at through this there's something not quite right we will see later how this connects to the other movements i also find it interesting how the different parts of this sonata movement are very unusual in their function and effect the exposition is already full of contrast and change and plunges you into plenty of different sound worlds which you would typically rather expect from a development section on the other hand this development is quite stable and doesn't develop anything really where movement was expected the music stands still more or less and then finally in the rupees where normally a conflict should be resolved and everything should be ordered so to say here there are these strange movements that make you question everything that happened before so beethoven really plays with the usual characteristics of each sections of a sonata form as well as the expectation of the listener now let's quickly finish with this first movement and move on to the next one of course finally the different subjects of the secondary subject group now appear in the main key of a flat major and stabilize this tonality [Music] the ending of the secondary subject group is extended and the music reaches a very high ethereal register the music slows and calms down and by 100 and then the quarter begins it starts with the light figurations now rightly in a flat major and not in e major as before they are also lower than earlier and feel even more warming [Music] [Music] this figurative section leads to the last section which brings us back to the main theme the order in which beethoven places these last sections is interesting because as you remember the movement starts with the main theme and then quickly moves away from it the beautiful melody follows and then leads to these soothing figurations this figurative section is simultaneously the endpoint of the main subject group and brings the music away from it leading to the secondary subject group here at the end of the movement it's the opposite the figurative section brings us back to the main theme it's like a closing circle [Music] as you see the main theme appears in the left hand but it is varied and embellished by other voices this makes it appear a bit more blurry and distant like an afterglow of the theme looking back at the beginning and ending at the same time but not only is the first movement a closed circle it also points towards the next movements if you look at the lower voice of the right hand and bar 114 you can recognize the theme of the fugue of the third movement so just like the main theme did at the very beginning there is the second voice hinting at the fugue here in the closing measures furthermore the upper notes of the last chord are exactly the same notes with which the second movement begins which brings us to this next movement [Music] the second movement is a complete contrast to the first one while the first movement was mostly serene gentle and beautiful the second skeletal egg movement is of a completely different character it's sort of strange and agitated it's rhythmically confusing it has simplicity to it but mixed with disturbances here and there it feels kind of dense or fog like at times and can be funny or even grotesque i'm actually not sure how i would describe this movement yet it's quite difficult also just the type of music to which this movement alludes to is contrasting as we saw in the first movement we had passages which reminded us of string quartet writing or of a singing voice with accompaniment or passages that were just very pianistic this second movement begins with music of a totally different world one that reminds us of dance or folk songs it definitely is a big contrast to the first movement linked to the contrasting character are also the much shorter length the very fast tempo and the key of f minor although it's not very stable and not only is this movement contrasting to the first one but it also is contrasty in itself it is divided into three parts a first part characterized by strong dynamic contrasts folk like melodies and rhythmic agitation then there is the middle part which is a very different sound world characterized by two distinct lines which get entangled one is this embellished figurative line and the other one is this strange jumping line this part is also rhythmically quite agitated and then finally the third part is a repetition of the first part with a quota at the end now let's look a bit more closely at each part the first part of this movement can be divided into further sections in the first one a simple melody is presented i mentioned the dance or folk-like aspect of this movement and the melodies play an important role for this as well as the simple harmony some musicologists say that the two main melodies of this first part are actually old austrian folk songs others say that beethoven never intended to quote any folk songs so i don't really know who to believe right now but what's important is that the character of these melodies is indeed folklike you can easily imagine them as folk songs being sung or whistles [Music] now let's go back to the first section of this first part this simple melody combined with this abrupt dynamic contrast especially at a fast tempo is really strange i don't know if you can call it grotesque but something in that direction there's something disturbing or deranged about it [Music] by the way this first melody can be connected to the descending line we had in the fourth bar of the first movement and it's just a descending scale but i think you could still make the connection especially because there are already various things that can be traced back to it in the first movement for example the exact same line reappears just before the quarter begins which is quite an important moment [Music] so yeah the descending first melody of the second movement could be seen as an extension of this we will later see how this descending line reappears in the third movement as well moving forward the next section keeps the strong dynamic and is full of syncopation and accents which create rhythmic and metric agitation this creates a lot of movement and tension especially because it is placed in the middle of two fold like melodies [Music] the second folk like melody starts out a bit mellower than the first one but finally leads to this abrupt and surprising fortissimo in bar 36 this little outburst is again kind of inadequate or disproportionate and makes this passage sound strange in fact this moment is so out of place that it needs two suspenseful bars of silence afterwards for the music to continue [Music] without a second to breathe or to rest on the cadence in f minor the right hand jumps up and the middle section of the movement immediately begins this precipitously throws us listeners into a very different sound world which is confusing and reinforces the feeling of agitation and instability we already have as i said earlier this new section consists of two very different lines going in contrary motion the upper voice rapidly strolls down and the lower voice jumps up both movements are kind of confusing the higher voice has this unpredictable feeling motion you never know if it will go up or down or when it suddenly jumps up and the left hand has these weird kind of jumps [Music] harmonically it's not very solid just like the first section by that i mean that there are no real cadences where we feel really grounded in a key all the cadences are really short-lived and there are quick modulations and so on we can also find the strong contrast we had earlier between passages in piano and sudden accents in fortissimo as well as syncopation with all these sortsati on the twos the lower voice coming on all the second beats is rhythmically quite confusing so to me at least this middle section is kind of weird too it's difficult to describe but it feels ambiguous unstable and confusing [Music] after the music of this middle section comes down and fades away the first section gets repeated it is almost identical a small but quite effective variation is the ritardando in bar 104 which makes the surprise of the fortre even stronger [Music] the last fortissimo surprise leads to the short coda it consists of firm chords separated by rests to me these chords feel like a forceful attempt to bring order to this chaotic movement it's the first time we have a cadence that leads to a really full f minor chord the pauses in between the chords reinforce this feeling of effort to bring this music to a conclusion the cadence continues but then as the dynamic decreases we surprisingly end in f major instead of f minor this f major chord in piano is also joined by this rising gesture in the left hand played with the pedal and ritardando all of this creates this ambiguous ending which doesn't feel like one at all it's very much open-ended which confirms the overall unstable and ambiguous character of the whole movement in addition to that this f major chord at the end also serves as a bridge to the third movement f major becomes the dominant of b flat minor in which the next movement begins so as you already saw at the end of the first movement the endings are really composed so that the movements can flow into each other which reinforces the sense of larger dramaturgy spanning over the whole sonata [Music] and now let's finally move on to the most exciting third movement so the third movement is really the heart of the sonata it makes half of the sonata and is the main scene of the whole dramaturgy the movement itself is divided into four different sections which are almost like distinct movements themselves i call them different chapters to make things a little clearer the first chapter is a slow and tragic one it has a dark and lamenting character and feels like a grieving over something that went wrong i like to think of it as the mourning over the lost serenity of the first movement in the ruprise of the first movement you could already sense that something got out of place then the second movement completely disturbed the peacefulness the third movement is the reaction to that we will later see how this connection between the second and third movement can be found in structural elements in his book about the beethoven piano sonaras similarly sees the second movement as the catastrophic event that leads to the tragic third movement i just wanted to mention that this book helped me a lot for my analysis and i include many of uda's ideas in this video anyway this first chapter consists of music that alludes to operatic music after a short sort of introduction there is richie sativo followed by a long sorrowful song this sorrowful song comes to a somber and really hopeless ending then begins a fugue which makes the second chapter this fugue attempts to come out of the misery to fight back against the tragedy so to say fuchs are associated with rationality order and even religiosity it's interesting to think about this in the context of this movement and why beethoven decided to use a fugue at this moment standing in opposition to the fateful and painful first chapter i'll talk about this again later on but yeah this strong and steady fugue full of drive intensifies until we are suddenly plunged back into the troublesome music of before this is where the third chapter begins it's a variation of the lamenting song of the first chapter but it is even more tragic and hopeless there is almost no energy left the music is almost dying and when you think that there is really nothing left beethoven surprises us with the re-emerging of the fugue this second fugue makes the fourth and last chapter which is the last and successful attempt to overcome the tragedy and sorrow ending the sonata with magnificent glorious and monumental music now this is roughly the arch of this third movement we will of course examine it in more detail but already you can notice two important things firstly that the form of this movement is very special and has nothing to do with traditional somata movements it has a free individual and very dramaturgical form if anything it is inspired by toccatas of bach which also had registativos ariozos and fuchs in them but this sonara and especially this last movement is forward looking in the sense that its form is unbound it doesn't follow any particular scheme but molds itself to the expressive needs of the composer and secondly that there is again a lot of different types of music we had string quartet korra pianistic which jurassic and folk like music in the previous movements now we have music reminding us of opera and then there is a fugue so this sonata is really a colorful mix of various kinds of music while still being very unified and now we can look a bit closer at each of the chapters of the third movement this final movement begins with a dramatic opening it starts in b flat minor which was introduced by the end of the second movement and then modulates to a flat minor the first three bars are kind of preludes for the rigidativo that follows in bar 4. the legitima is always an important and intense moment in music beethoven sometimes uses this type of richter tivo kind of writing in his piano sonatas and they are always very expressive it's as if suddenly a subject maybe the composer himself starts speaking out all alone by himself there is a similar passage in the tempest samantha [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] here in opus 110 there is this famous trembling passage which really expresses the sorrow of this recitativo [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] interestingly this regitativo modulates at this moment and for one instant we are in f flat or e major which if you remember was the key to which the rubrics of the first movement shifted to so it seems as though the strange displacement in the first movement is connected to this tragic event in the third movement this regitativo then leads to the ariozo dolente the clarender gazan lamenting song which is in a flat minor this by the way is quite a rare and very explicit indication by beethoven and you can look at all the tempo indications that brought us here this whole beginning is composed in a manner that when played nicely feels very improvised and free the lamenting song consists obviously of a singing upper voice and accompanying chords this doesn't change throughout the whole thing which makes it more uniform than the previous bars it is very flowing and one doesn't perceive cuts or anything this is largely due to the constant accompaniment this rhythmic continuity that it provides also prepares the fugue that has a similar continuity to it nevertheless this ariozo could still be divided into two parts the first one modulates to c flat major and the second part modulates back to a flat minor if we look at the beginning of the melody we can see that it has a descending motion the contour of this melody can be associated with the first theme of the second movement which was a descending line descending lines like this actually appear already earlier during the third movement for example in bar five and six jung uder sees this as a reflection or a lament over this disturbing second movement and in another way this ariozo is connected to the first movement in that it is similar to the second section of the exposition so it is linked to the serenity of the first movement and the agitation of the second movement at the same time moving forward although the whole section is very tragic there are some moments which feel a bit brighter or more hopeful for example the passage at bar 13 which through its rising melody and its harmony feels a little encouraging we are in c flat major and the melody reaches the highest point of the whole ariozo it's like a gathering of strength to bring some light into this darkness [Music] but this glimpse of hope is very short-lived the harmony turns somber again the melody slowly descends to its low point all the hope and strength really gets lost notice how in bar 18 the beginning melody of the ariozo is recycled so to say the exact same melody is repeated but through the different harmonic and rhythmic or rather metric context it appears differently [Music] and talking about melody one small but important element that adds to the desperate and sorrowful quality of all the melodic phrases is that every single one of them ends with a suspension moving on empire 21 this mournful chromatic motif appears in one of the middle voices and creates these harsh dissonances the ariozo then slowly ends in real desperation and helplessness with their unison and the rhythm the last notes prepare the upcoming fugue [Music] [Music] this brings us to the second chapter of the third movement the first fugue we saw that the first chapter was a completely tragic one its core being the lamenting song that ends in despair the fugue is now trying to overcome this tragedy it is as if all forces are collected to somehow fight back like an attempt at elevation out of the misery at this point i should mention that a lot of people associate this sonata and especially this dramatic third movement with beethoven battling the illness he had during the year he wrote it one should always be careful with biographical interpretations of words of art and in this case i understand where you would make this connection but i think it's limiting i don't think beethoven wanted to depict specifically his battle with an illness this exact year the dramaturgy of this sonata is clearly centered around a tragedy that needs to be overcome it's a common dramaturgy and you can find this type of arch in many works of literature theater or film for example but for a piano sonata it was quite special the whole arch of the sonata roughly being a beginning in a state of serenity disturbance or really a catastrophe that leads to tragedy and hopelessness and finally the overcoming of this tragedy this could be the story of someone becoming severely sick and overcoming the illness in the end it could also be the story of beethoven becoming deaf and overcoming this catastrophe and composing the most profound music nevertheless but it's about more than just one particular event i think it's um more about the archetype of that dramaturgy or actually i wouldn't say it's about anything this sonata is not bound to illustrate a particular story but it makes you feel dramaturgy it takes you through this turbulent journey in which you feel all the ups and downs and in betweens without being limited to a specific story or something it makes you experience the essence of this dramaturgy if you will i don't know if that was clear i still have to think about it myself but anyway let's continue with the fugue as i've mentioned it's interesting that beethoven put a fugue at this moment fuchs being a representation of rationality balance and order but also religiosity fuchs being polyphonic pieces where all the voices are equal and everything is in perfect balance so to say we're connected to the idea of an ordered and balanced word created by a god we won't talk about that too much now but it's interesting because putting a fugue in the third movement here gets a bit of a philosophical meaning as well this rationality this order as a way to fight against the tragedy the whole fugue is quite uniform which is a contrast to the beginning of the third movement which as we saw changed a lot during a short period of time this is mainly due to the stable but forward driving rhythm there are basically constant eighth notes all the time it is also harmonically quite stable and doesn't modulate very much the fugue theme is also relatively stable and doesn't get very dead heavily many things like these make this view feel somewhat rigid not in a bad way but strong firm and really kind of effortful as we saw the strong theme of the fugue is a distillation of the beginning of the first theme in the first movement it is a more vocal fugue theme rather than an instrumental one it consists of rising fourths and this rising gesture contributes to the feeling of effort or strengthening to fight the tragedy the rising movement is also present on a larger scale for example all the voice entries at the beginning of the view create a rising movement this motion is then falling back down to introduce this dramatic voice entry in octaves in the left hand and by 45 [Music] so [Music] the music slowly starts rising again around the voice engine bar 62 and now gets higher than before it reaches a high point with this a flat and then quickly fades away until the shocking bar 73 appears this is in many ways the extreme point of this fugue suddenly we have the most extreme dynamic of fortissimo the lowest register with this octave entry in the left hand we modulate to c minor and the first note of the theme is augmented you can notice in this [ __ ] but in this whole sonata actually that bitton really plays with the different sound colors of the piano this extremely low register with this extreme dynamic create a very strong sound such moments can be found at many instances this passage actually also brings the highest note of the fugue the d flat in bar 80 shortly before we suddenly are in piano again [Music] as we saw these strong contrasts are very important in the sonata beethoven continues with dynamic contrasts in the following passage by alternating bars in photo and in piano he specifically didn't write a decrescendo or crescendo to accentuate this contrast the fugue then calms down a bit but continues with its steady motion in bar 91 we have a little stripta so the soprano starts with the theme and the tenor joins in without waiting for the soprano to finish the theme the music intensifies and leads to a dominant pedal point which is very typical for endings of fugues there are many examples in fugues by foreign [Music] dominant pedal points create a lot of tension which adds up and it wants to be resolved when it is then finally resolved it creates an even more fulfilling feeling of resolution in this case the pedal point doesn't lead to a resolution but instead brings an intense voice entry in the left hand this whole next passage continues the intensification of the dominant pedal point and increases it its main harmony is also the dominant and it therefore creates a lot of tension as well the voice entry in the left hand gets elongated and surpasses the low point of before with this slow c then jumps to this rhythmically varied motif coming from the main theme which combined with the right hand heightens the intensity of these last bars the right hand plays one last theme entry in the soprano in bar 105 in bar 107 both hands rise higher and higher before falling back down to these fortissimo dominant chords which feel like the climax of this whole buildup at this moment the tension is at its high point and the listener really craves a resolution the expected resolution would be to just come back to the tonic of a flat major we expect that chord but instead beethoven continues with the dominant chord now arpeggiated there's a strong diminuendo and the music holds at yet another dominant chord in piano the decrescendo alone makes this passage feel like a loss of strength and courage and then suddenly we fall down into this devastating g minor chord all the effort the strength the concentration and drive of the fugue are abruptly destroyed by this fall into the second arioso which is the third chapter [Music] [Music] it is a variation of the aryozo dolente the lamenting song we heard earlier the chromatic descent from a flat minor to g minor indicates the fall into an even darker more bitter tragic and hopeless place this chromatic shift reminds us of the important chromatic shift in the rubrics of the first movement as well if you remember this shift happened from g-sharp to g natural this is interesting because it is the same as a flat to g natural which is the harmonic disposition of the two ariozos the first one was an a-flat minor and after the fugue the second one falls down to g minor so looking back at this strange moment we can say that it really is crucial and points towards the most tragic moment of the whole sonata which is this fall into the second oriole the indication beethoven gives is really telling hermatite clark which means exhausted and lamenting and then in italian losing strength and sorrowful the second aryozo is even more tragic than the first one which says a lot you can really feel that there's no vitality energy or hope left this is due to many reasons first of all the tonality of g minor as i said then maybe the most touching variation in this ariuzo is the addition of all these little sighs and pauses in the melody this creates the effect of an extremely weakened or even sobbing singer who sings this lament look at all the psy motifs and puzzles we already have in the first four bars [Music] if you remember in the first arizona the next bars were somewhat more hopeful because of the rising movement and the major harmony we have a parallel passage in the same bars of the secondary user but through these short pauses alone it sounds much more dramatic weak and draining [Music] another aspect is the left hand which plays more four note chords than in the first alioso this adds to the overall increased darkness of it around by 130 it seems as though the music or the singing is about to die there's only the side motif left separated by these expressive rests there is a diminuendo and in by 131 even the left pedal softening the sound even more the last g minor chord is followed by the same cadencing motif we had in the first aryozo but this time it consists of short separated 16th notes and not held legato notes like before this adds again to the impression of weakness it's as if there was barely enough energy left to play this cadence motif at all holding them more than 1 16th note seems impossible so as you see this devastating second arioso really brings the music to a low point to the darkest place in this sonata any kind of vivacity or hope is completely lost and it's actually hard to imagine what could come after this if anything at all really everything seems lost at the end of the sariozo we expect this cadence motif to end on a d minor chord but beethoven instead brings probably the biggest surprise of this sonata the cadence motif ends on this unexpected g major chord the pedal is held down and this chord is repeated a bunch of times becoming louder and fuller this comes as a total surprise and feels like an unforeseen and hopeful gathering of strength these chords lead to this rising g major arpeggio which will introduce the second fuch which is the final chapter of this movement and ends the sonata [Music] [Music] do [Music] [Music] the gesture of this arpeggio starting from this very low g and rising to this high d also indicates the rising out of the darkness of the aryozo just like the first chapter in a flat minor lead to the second chapter in a flat major here we had the third chapter in g minor which now leads to the fourth chapter in g major although we had the sudden a mass of strength the journey is not over yet the final view begins softly and kind of hesitantly this is also evident in beethoven's indications of limbed so gradually more lively the tragic second aryosa was so disconcerting that everything is out of place of course the harmony is shifted we are in d major although the sonata is an a flat major and also the fugue theme is now inverted so this fugue starts cautiously in g major with this inverted fugue theme and the goal of this last fugue will be to return to the regular frug theme and most importantly to the main key of a flag major in addition to that we will see how beethoven dissolves the fugue in this final chapter and brings this music to a triumphal and ecstatic ending this second fugue is the final effort to overcome the tragedy happening in the first and third chapter since the first fugue wasn't successful this one needs more concentration more effort one aspect that shows this is that this fugue uses much more complex polyphonic techniques let's look at that a little closer so after all voices have entered with the inverted theme the music modulates to c minor the next theme entry by the soprano already restates the fugue theme in its regular form and is augmented so it is in longer note values below that we can see that even before the soprano the lowest voice plays the regular theme but in diminution so it is in shorter note values the middle voice immediately follows with the variation of that and both voices continue playing with this variant of the theme creating movement this interplay gets rhythmically more complex and the last motif cell with these two 16th notes gets more prominent [Music] so [Music] this leads to bar 160 in which both upper voices play the regular theme in parallel sixth while the lower voice plays an augmented version of it the right hand continues with rhythmically agitated variations of different sections of the theme there is a lot of syncopations creating more tension and movement you can also notice that again the last three notes of the main theme where there are faster note values gain importance this indicates the overall acceleration that is happening in this finale the note values get shorter and therefore the movement gets faster slowly also the left pedal is brought back up so that the sound becomes fuller again so you can see how gradually the timidly beginning view becomes more vivid using all these elaborated contrapuntal techniques at this point basically everything stems out of the main fugue theme this brings us to the second part of this final chapter which i would describe as a kind of transition we started out with this inverted fugue and this second part serves as a transition which will simultaneously bring back and start dissolving the main fugue and lead to the last parts where the fugue is surpassed so to say you will shortly see what i mean this second part is also marked by the new tempo indication it is a bit slower but because of the faster note values the transition is more or less fluid you can see how the 16th notes that became more and more prominent before are now dominating all the voices successively enter with an even faster diminution of the theme you can also notice how the piano writing gets a bit brighter and lighter and has less of a few character first of all the faster note values create this brighter and lighter effect but also the higher register and most importantly the fact that there are not really three voices playing together anymore it slowly becomes more of a two voice writing as you can see there is never a moment where there are really three verses playing together there are always only two voices sounding at the same time in this part the inversion of the fugue theme comes back again when there is this dialogue between the highest and the lowest voice the highest voice plays variations of the regular theme and the low voice plays variations of the inversion in between that the middle voice also plays the inverted theme in its normal rhythm [Music] this leads to the important bar 174 where we finally reach the home key of a flat major again this is where i would start the third part of this last chapter the main tonality and the main fugue theme are finally regained with that comes back all the vivacity energy strength and hope that was lost the highest voice changed direction and plays an inversion now too before the low voice enters with the regular main theme and octaves in falter in its regular form and rhythm and in the main key of a flat major with that we almost get to the final state of two voice writing the highest voice disappears and the middle voice plays a figuration that is related to a diminution of the fugue theme but that now becomes an accompaniment when the lone voice has finished with the theme another middle voice takes the lead with the theme again this is the last indication of three voices we have here the low register is lagging and the tension increases because of the harmony the constant fast sixteenth notes figurations there is forzation every second theme note and the arcelerando that most pianists play during this passage because of beethoven's indication boyaboy pew mortar [Music] this increasing tension leads to bar 184 which is the absolute goal of not only this last fugue but the whole sonata i would consider this the last part of this final chapter which serves as a sort of triumphant grand reprise we have the main fugue theme in the right hand which now appears in chords in homophony like him it is accompanied by the figurations that were introduced by the minutian of the theme that gradually morphed into an accompaniment now we finally reached the two voice writing of course there are more than two voices but it is clearly a chordal melody and accompaniment we had the return to the main fugue theme and dimensionality before but here it is more than that the fugue is surpassed so to speak this whole process has transformed the fugue to this glorious homophonic statement of the fugue theme accompanied by these fast figurations and now most astonishingly these accompanying figurations remind us of the figurations of the first movement this last passage is actually clearly connected to the rupees of the first movement where we had fast figurative accompaniment with the main theme and chords above although once the figurations are in 32nd notes and once in 16th notes because of the different tempi their pace matches up so not only have we regained the main tonality the main fugue theme and have surpassed the state of fugue but at the same time we have a large kind of caprice which links this last chapter to the first movement the theme of the fugue is combined with figurative accompaniment reminiscent of the first movement to form this last ecstatic passage in the whole dramaturgy of this sonata this means that after all these troublesome and tragic events and this painful fight the initial state of serenity warmth peacefulness and balance is not only regained but it's surpassed we have come back to a flat major the inverted fugue theme found its initial form again and the figurations of the first movement have reappeared in this context through the combination of all these elements we have not only come back to a previous state but we have gone beyond that this last passage brings the music to a state of total euphoria and jubilation the tragedy has finally been overcome and the sonata triumphantly ends in complete ecstasy and with hope [Music] foreign [Music] so i hope i could fascinate you for this absolutely wonderful sonata i will shortly recap what we have talked about we saw how this sonata is really conceptualized as a whole how there is dramaturgy overarching all the different movements which essentially leads to the euphoric finale this comes with various intricate connections between the movements we also saw what richness of different types of music this sonata contains there were forks on like passages operatic passages fugues and more one connecting aspect is the vocality of the music a lot of the music in the sonata is related to singing i mentioned the folk song opera and fuchs but there's also the accompanied singing melodies in the first movement or the lamenting song in the third movement for example this richness goes hand in hand with the strong contrasts of this sonata not only are there strong contrasts between the different movements but even inside of them finally we can also see how individualized this piano sonata is beethoven did a lot of very special and unusual things in the sonata form of the first movement for example but most apparently the third movement is very free and has a highly individual form beethoven not only uses the piano sonata as a medium of free individual expression but he brings the genre to new heights this level of drama and especially this level of ecstasy at the end is something that wasn't typical for a piano sonata at all at the time all in all this fantastic sonata really takes you through an exciting and deeply moving journey it's one of the most moving thrilling and captivating pieces of music or even works of art i know and i would really encourage you to listen to this sonata right now after this video and many times more in the future if you made it this far into the video thank you very very much it really means a lot to me if you are still watching please write a comment and tell me who you are because it actually really interests me who would watch such a long video of mine of course consider liking and subscribing if you haven't already and maybe even supporting me on patreon or buy me a coffee i work really hard for these videos and would be very thankful for any kind of support i have tons of ideas for future videos so stay tuned and see you soon

Channel: Mattia Aisemberg Pham

Views: 10,092

Keywords: Music, Classical Music, Piano music, Classical Piano Music, Beethoven, Ludwig Van, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Beethoven Music, Beethoven Piano Music, Sonata, Classical Sonata, Piano Sonata, Classical Piano Sonata, Beethoven Sonata, Beethoven Piano Sonata, Music Analysis, Musical Analysis, Classical Music Analysis, Music Theory, Musicology, Music History, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Music Lovers, Musicality, Melody, Harmony, Harmonic Analysis

Id: r1XFrKPXyJs

Length: 94min 55sec (5695 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2022