Walk at Dusk (Man Contemplating a Megalith), possibly a self-portrait by Caspar David Friedrich (1837-40)

Piano Sonata no.17 in D minor Op.31/2 ‘The Tempest’ for piano (1802, Beethoven aged 31)

1. Largo – Allegro
2. Adagio
3. Allegretto

Dedication unknown
Duration 23′

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written by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

As we have previously considered, the Op.31 sonatas were composed in the year of Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, written on 6 October 1802. In this landmark letter to his brothers, which was left unsent, he revealed the full torment of his encroaching deafness – and while nobody would guess Beethoven’s fate from the first or last in the Op.31 set of his troubles, they could be left in no doubt by the second.

Its nickname of The Tempest could well be spurious, for it was applied after Anton Schindler recounted a conversation asking the composer what the piece was about, whereupon Beethoven supposedly said, ‘Read Shakespeare’s Tempest!’

Angela Hewitt, in the booklet notes accompanying her Hyperion recordings of the sonatas, gives a heartfelt appraisal of the sonata, noting its quote in the first movement of the aria Es ist vollbracht from J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, and also the similarity of the last few bars to the rumbling of distant thunder, a quality identified by Beethoven’s friend Carl Czerny.

Hewitt takes in ‘one of Beethoven’s most glorious slow movements’, with a dolce melody that proves ‘heartbreaking in its eloquent simplicity’. In the third movement, ‘the tragic feeling continues right to the end, with the music disappearing into the void.’

Thoughts

This sonata is both dramatic and tragic – the opposite of its predecessor in G major. From the beginning it has a heavy heart, and a tendency to lean on dissonances in a way that somehow anticipates the music of Janáček, still some 120 years away.

The first movement paints a dark picture, with a lot of the action lower down in the piano. Ominous rumblings and angular lines are the order of the day, and as the development of these ideas progresses the music almost stops, enfolded in its own mystery. Suddenly a bolt of lightning thunders down, the listener jolted back to an awful reality.

After the fire and brimstone of the first movement, the second is calmer but not necessarily consoling. The intensity is still present in Beethoven’s thoughts, now presented in a measured way. Again the composer’s use of silence is telling, as is the time given to the lower end of the piano once again.

The finale shifts up towards the higher register but stays resolutely in D minor. It retains the powerful expression of the first two movements, but stays in semiquavers the whole way through, meaning the tension never lets up. Just on the approach to the recap of the main theme the music adopts a rocking motion, before subsiding to a quiet, thoughtful end. There is no major key happiness to be had here.

This must surely be the lowest piano sonata to have been written by 1802, and would have had an enormous impact on early audiences. In the knowledge of Beethoven’s realisation of his deafness it is convenient to link the Tempest sonata to the anguish he must have felt, but it really does feel like a pure expression of pain and loss. The piano sonata as Beethoven would have known it was breaking new grounds.

Recordings used and Spotify links

You can hear clips of 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 1802 Haydn Harmoniemesse

Next up Piano Sonata no.18 in E flat major Op.31/3

The Marketplace in Greifswald by Caspar David Friedrich (1818)

Piano Sonata no.16 in G major Op.31/1 for piano (1802, Beethoven aged 31)

1. Allegro vivace
2. Adagio grazioso
3. Allegretto

Dedication unknown
Duration 25′

Listen

written by Ben Hogwood

Background and Critical Reception

The three Op.31 piano sonatas stand right at a junction in Beethoven’s output, at the end of his more ‘classical’ approach and at the start of a period of even greater originality. Sir András Schiff notes this is the last ‘set’ of sonatas Beethoven published, and like Op.2 or Op.10, ‘we really do hear and notice an enormous diversity’. The trio is much-loved by pianists, but perhaps inevitably star billing goes to the minor key work in the middle, the ‘Tempest’.

That is to the detriment of the other two works in the group – beginning with this work in G major, something of a conundrum for Angela Hewitt. Writing booklet notes for Hyperion, the pianist confesses to a puzzled reaction on her first encounter with the piece. ‘What on earth is this?’, she thought. ‘It seemed to comprise a first movement in which the two hands can’t play together and, when they do, run around in octave unisons, and with a banal-sounding second theme that didn’t help matters; a second movement which had so many notes on the page and looked either drastically simple or too flowery, and how were you supposed to play that left hand anyway; and a last movement that had a nice theme but looked overly long and, to make matters worse, ended softly. So I didn’t go near it.’

A conversation with conductor Sir Roger Norrington gave her deep insight into the humour in Beethoven’s music, and her view was transformed. It was ‘then possible to see this very unique sonata, and indeed most of the cycle, in a totally different light. It was, and remains, very liberating.’

She points out all the instances of humour in Beethoven’s writing, especially the overly long build up to the return of the first theme, which leans on a spicy clash between E flat and D, before tripping into ‘one of those country themes that Beethoven so excelled at’, and which his pupil Czerny said should be played ‘facetiously’. The slow movement ‘is a very unusual movement. We immediately enter the world of Italian opera, and it is hard not to imagine a great bel canto singer accompanied by a mandolin. The most delicate touch is needed for this movement as well as great poise. I see it more as Beethoven setting out to prove that he could write better Italian music than the Italians!’ Finally the last movement, which ‘is perhaps less inspired, but should not be rushed. Much of this music could pass as Schubert, but the coda couldn’t be by anybody but Beethoven.’

Thoughts

A delightful piece, and an unpredictable one. This is a work where the sense of Beethoven flexing his muscles as a composer is undeniable, and the freedom of expression he has here is perhaps greater than at any point in his output so far. The first movement is allowed to run free, as though improvised at the piano, but it keeps within the boundaries of sonata form and never rambles. Instead it is witty, thoughtful, expansive, intimate and consoling by turn, always on the move and always keeping the listener guessing.

Second movement really expansive flourishes in the right hand, going further and further from the tonic in what feels like an increasingly restless desire to escape the conventional tonality. This is a really substantial, ‘staged’ movement that tells a powerful story.

Third movement feels just right after the emotional drama of the second, it is reassuring and comforting. There are some questions to this however when Beethoven starts developing the theme, and suddenly things feel less certain. The end is pure theatre, too, slowed down and drawing out the inevitable return to the home key – but even this is far from certain

That Beethoven could write a piece of such surety and humour in one of his darkest hours says much for the composer’s temperament, and it gives us an indication of how he would respond to his impending deafness with ever greater and more original music.

Recordings used and Spotify links

You can hear clips of 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 1802 Weber Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn

Next up Piano Sonata no.17 in D minor Op.31/2 ‘The Tempest’