Commemorative medal for Ludwig van Beethoven – Bronze medal from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture based on a design by József Reményi (picture courtesy of the Beethovenhaus, Bonn)
Bagatelle in C minor WoO 52 for piano (c1795-7, Beethoven aged 24-6)
Dedication not known Duration 3’45”
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written by Ben Hogwood
Background and Critical Reception
A bagatelle that slipped through the net on Arcana’s Beethoven voyage! This one, which appears to have been finished between 1795 and 1797, is one of a series of such works completed in C minor. It was seemingly on the shortlist to be picked for the set of bagatelles Beethoven published as Op.119 in 1823.
Misha Donat, writing in his notes for the recording by Steven Osborne on Hyperion, suggests the movement was intended for inclusion as part of the Piano Sonata no.5 in C minor Op.10/1, but ‘discarded the scherzo-like piece because its tempo was too similar to that of the finale’. The piece was first published in 1888.
Thoughts
It is easy to see how this piece could be an out-take from the C minor sonata. It has the profile of a scherzo, with a repeated note motif that isn’t too dissimilar to that used in the forthcoming Symphony no.5. Although this ‘riff’ starts in the left hand it transfers to the right as well, and Beethoven enjoys playing with the syncopations it generates.
As a ‘trio’ section Beethoven moves into the major key, with a lighter touch and a warmer outlook to the music. It doesn’t last long, however – and we return to the dogged C minor material for a convincing finish.
Not exactly an easy Bagatelle to play, and much more a sonata fragment – but typically well constructed and memorable in its material.
Recordings used and Spotify playlist
Jenő Jandó (Naxos) Mikhail Pletnev (DG) Ronald Brautigam (BIS) John Lill (Chandos)
Ronald Brautigam provides plenty of energy on his account, and there are tasteful versions from the other three pianists on the list – as well as Steven Osborne on Hyperion.
You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!
Also written in 1797 Eberl2 Sonatas for Keyboard four hands, Op.7
Piano Sonata no.23 in F minor Op.57 ‘Appassionata’ for piano (1804-5, Beethoven aged 34)
1. Allegro assai 2. Andante con moto 3. Allegro ma non troppo – Presto
Dedication Count Franz von Brunswick
Duration 23″
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written by Ben Hogwood
Background and Critical Reception
Even within Beethoven’s output, the Appassionata sonata is seen as a landmark. As Angela Hewitt writes in the booklet note for her recording of the work on Hyperion, it is a central part of Beethoven’s ‘heroic’ period, sat in publication order between the Eroica symphony and the Piano Concerto no.4, and at a time where Beethoven was taking risks.
Beethoven’s fellow composer and friend Ferdinand Ries recorded how he watched Beethoven at work in Baden. The two composers went for a walk, where Ries described a striking melody on the shawm – which Beethoven could not hear because of his rapidly advancing deafness. It turned out that he was preoccupied in any case, for on their return he immediately went to the keyboard, and played through the newly composed finale of the new sonata, Ries recounting a performance of ‘irresistible fire and mighty force’.
Writing in The Beethoven Companion, Harold Truscott asserts that ‘technically, apart from one or two passages, the work is not difficult to play…yet can still sound very brilliant. Its real difficulty, however, is control of its varied elements and of the great expressive power which is their sum.’
Angela Hewitt notes Beethoven’s holding back of this power until the finale – an increasingly notable feature of his writing. As Jan Swafford writes, ‘Beethoven had an incomparable skill for raising a movement to what seems an unsurpassable peak of excitement or tension, then to surpass it.’
Thoughts
In the Appassionata the risk taking can be seen everywhere you turn. It can be found in the work’s opening phrase, going down to the low ‘F’ exploiting the bigger range of Beethoven’s new Erard piano. It can be found in the stormy middle section of the first movement and the whirlwind figurations of the last, where the right hand is playing so fast it threatens to go off the end! It can also be found in the structural design, Beethoven writing a slow movement that acts initially as an equivalent to the hymnal slow movement in the Pathetique sonata, but ends up as a bridge to the finale. The consolation it was beginning to provide is wholly lost.
Its opening three notes give an immediate idea of the gravitas of the piece. They may be the notes of the F minor triad but they carry great weight – as Beethoven’s works in this key were wont to do. The first movement is compelling, the main theme littered with interruptions as though a battle is being waged between war and peace. The latter breaks out in the second movement, the hymnal motive both simple and moving, but soon gathering momentum as Beethoven finds he cannot stand still.
All is headed for a last movement of formidable power, unlike anything we have heard on the piano so far. The torrent of notes fly in the face of Truscott’s assertion that the piece is not difficult to play – but the language for the listener is unremitting and straightforward. At the end the Appassionata sets its listener down in a heap, all emotion spent.
Recordings used and Spotify links
Alfred Brendel (Philips) András Schiff (ECM) Angela Hewitt (Hyperion) Paul Badura-Skoda (Arcana) Stephen Kovacevich (EMI) Igor Levit (Sony Classical) Claudio Arrau (Philips) Daniel Barenboim (Deutsche Grammophon)
There are some towering interpretations of Beethoven’s masterpiece in this playlist, not least those by Emil Gilels, Claudio Arrau and Alfred Brendel. Andras Schiff and Angela Hewitt are also very fine. Paul Badura-Skoda secures authentic drama from his Broadwood piano, dating from a mere decade after the piece was written.
You can hear clips of Angela Hewitt’s recording at the Hyperion website
You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!
Whilst preparing for the next in Arcana’s Listening to Beethoven series – the 216th instalment, all told! – I have become more acutely aware of just how effective the Beethoven piano sonatas are for after hours listening.
Without further ado, then, here is the Appassionata Sonata in a commanding recording made by Emil Gilels (above), part of the wonderful collection of Beethoven sonatas he made for Deutsche Grammophon. It is quite an experience:
Sea beach with fisherman (The fisherman) by Caspar David Friedrich (1807)
Piano Sonata no.22 in F major Op.54 for piano (1804, Beethoven aged 33)
1 In tempo d’un menuetto 2 Allegretto – Più allegro
Dedication Count Ferdinand Waldstein Duration 12′
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written by Ben Hogwood
Background and Critical Reception
Beethoven biographer Lewis Lockwood has an important observation, that ‘in other middle-period pairings, a long, powerful and brilliant work (in this case the Waldstein sonata) is succeeded by a short and quiet one, with Beethoven creating a double image and a deliberate contrast, a reminder of the balance between great and small, between seemingly opposed and adjacent modes of being that can compliment one another, as a rare flower grows by a large tree’.
Little needs to be said after that rather neat summing up – though it is as always worth hearing the thoughts of pianist Angela Hewitt. Writing booklet notes for her Hyperion recording, she notes the elegance of the opening before ‘all hell breaks loose’. For the second movement, she stresses the importance of observing the composer’s ‘dolce’ marking to avoid it sounding like a study.
Thoughts
As Angela Hewitt notes, it is a graceful and genial start to this piece, Beethoven enjoying a few sleights of hand with some chromatic inflections to the melody, before the cavalry rights roughshod over the tranquil mood. There is a perceptible glint in the composer’s eye while this happens, and you can sense the frowns the first audience may well have had! This means when the mood returns to tranquil the listener is no longer as trusting as to what might happen – and they are right to be wary, for Beethoven enjoys a few more outbursts and melodic quirks.
The second movement is fast and flowing, though there is a more romantic element to the twinkling right hand, and a good deal of expressive weight when the left hand goes towards the bottom end of the piano. Once again Beethoven enjoys journeying to far-flung keys, and the momentum never lets up right to the emphatic finish.
This is a curious piece, one that is indicative of Beethoven’s quest for the new, challenging existing notions of how a sonata should behave. It has elements of the Waldstein’s virtuosity and energy in the final movement, and has all the characteristics of a ‘prelude and fugue’ from the Baroque period. There is much to enjoy here!
Recordings used and Spotify links
Alfred Brendel (Philips) András Schiff (ECM) Angela Hewitt (Hyperion) Paul Badura-Skoda (Arcana) Stephen Kovacevich (EMI) Igor Levit (Sony Classical) Claudio Arrau (Philips) Daniel Barenboim (Deutsche Grammophon)
Once again a crowded field of some very fine versions, though those from András Schiff, Alfred Brendel and Stephen Kovacevich prove particularly enjoyable.
You can hear clips of Angela Hewitt’s recording at the Hyperion website
You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!
Also written in 1804 HummelRondo in E flat major Op.11
Landscape With Mountain Lake, Morning by Caspar David Friedrich (1823-35)
Piano Sonata no.21 in C major Op.53 ‘Waldstein’ for piano (1804, Beethoven aged 33)
1 Allegro molto 2 Introduzione – Adagio molto – 3 Rondo: Allegretto moderato
Dedication Count Ferdinand Waldstein Duration 25′
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written by Ben Hogwood
Background and Critical Reception
Beethoven’s next piano sonata was dedicated to the man who could claim to have had the greatest impact on his success as a composer – Count Ferdinand Waldstein of Bonn. What the Count made of this dedication we do not know, for he was fighting abroad at the time, but Beethoven had dedicated a remarkable new work in his favour.
It was written for a new piano – an Érard of French origin, with four pedals and an extended range. Jan Swafford gives a compelling account of how Beethoven wrote for this new instrument, ‘its action heavier and its sound bigger than the Viennese pianos he was used to.’ There were new colours to explore, and pedal effects with which to experiment, and Beethoven wasted no time, using the piano as ‘the vehicle of a heroic journey that ends in overflowing exaltation’. In this sense, the Waldstein Sonata was similar in thought to the recently premiered Eroica symphony.
The sonata, however, is a very different animal. Charles Rosen talks of ‘a characteristic sound, not only unlike the music of other composers, but unlike any other work of Beethoven, an energetic hardness, dissonant and yet curiously plain, expressive without richness.’ For Lewis Lockwood, ‘this sonata could never have been played by merely competent amateurs in Beethoven’s time. With its arrival the technical level of the piano sonata was elevated to that of the concerto.’ He equates it to Beethoven’s accomplishment for the violin in the Kreutzer sonata.
In an interview with Arcana, Angela Hewitt recognised its difficulties. “I don’t think it’s his greatest sonata but it is a wonderful performance piece when you can bring it off. If you look at every detail in it then it and want to play it well it is very difficult.”
The first movement draws attention for what Swafford terms its ‘surging and singularly pianistic dynamism’. The second movement was initially going to be a substantial Andante, but failed its initial audition with friends, who declared it too long. After a fit of pique, Beethoven reluctantly agreed and removed it, publishing it separately as the standalone Andante favori. Replacing it was a short transitional movement in the same key, a ‘short stretch of reverie and anticipation’.
The anticipation is lets loose by the finale, ‘one of the most ecstatic of all movement for piano’ in Swafford’s eyes, ‘like a gust of wind that shocks the listener into a sense of the joyous effervescence of life’. For him, the Waldstein is ‘a feat of disciplined craftsmanship that would have been practically unimaginable if he had not done it’. Here is a defining demonstration of what musical composition is about.’
Thoughts
I’m going to disagree with Angela Hewitt and declare the Waldstein as the finest sonata in Beethoven’s output thus far, in a crowded field. Even listening to it now, some 218 years after composition, its first movement has the power to make the listener sit up and take notice of its unusual writing.
For few works for piano are as immediately propulsive, and to be writing that now gives an idea of just how forward-looking this piece must have sounded to its first audience in 1804. The first movement bubbles with energy, establishing C major as the home key but with a restless gait and an unstoppable drive. Contrast that with the still second theme, a glimpse of pure light before the quickfire figures return.
The second movement Adagio is indeed a magical transition, but the finale into which it leads is brilliantly judged, ghosting in with a graceful, singing melody, the piano now sounding more orchestral in its wide range of colours and figures. Soon the energy levels of the first movement are met and surpassed, the deceptively simple melody keeping the ship on course while the torrent of water surrounds it from the other hands.
Everything here is done with a firm assurance, the composer fully confident in his processes and results. As a result the Waldstein is Beethoven’s most assured and confident pieces yet – impeccably structured, brilliantly written for the developing piano and full of challenges, not to mention thrills and spills for the audience.
Recordings used and Spotify links
Emil Gilels (Deutsche Grammophon) Alfred Brendel (Philips) András Schiff (ECM) Angela Hewitt (Hyperion) Paul Badura-Skoda (Arcana) Stephen Kovacevich (EMI) Igor Levit (Sony Classical) Claudio Arrau (Philips) Daniel Barenboim (Deutsche Grammophon)
Emil Gilels gives a peerless account for DG, one of his very finest piano recordings. In a crowded field his is arguably the leading version, though the others listed above are hardly slouches!
You can hear clips of Angela Hewitt’s recording at the Hyperion website
You can chart the Arcana Beethoven playlist as it grows, with one recommended version of each piece we listen to. Catch up here!
Also written in 1804 RiesPiano Sonata in A minor Op.1/2
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