The Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor

C minor

C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...

, Op.

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 111, is the last of Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's piano sonata

Piano sonata

A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

s. Along with Beethoven's 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli

Diabelli Variations

The 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120, commonly known as the Diabelli Variations, is a set of variations for the piano written between 1819 and 1823 by Ludwig van Beethoven on a waltz composed by Anton Diabelli...

, op. 120 (1823) and his two collections of bagatelles—Opus 119 (1822) and Opus 126 (1824)—this was one of Beethoven's last compositions for piano. The work was written between 1821 and 1822. Like other "late period" sonatas, it contains fugal

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject that is introduced at the beginning in imitation and recurs frequently in the course of the composition....

 elements.

Structure

The work is in two highly contrasting movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

s:

1. Maestoso - Allegro con brio ed appassionato
2. Arietta: Adagio molto, semplice e cantabile

The first movement, like many other works by Beethoven in C minor (see Beethoven and C minor

Beethoven and C minor

In the compositions of Ludwig van Beethoven, C minor is commonly regarded as a special key: works for which Beethoven chose this key are felt to be powerful and emotionally stormy.-Background:...

), is stormy and impassioned. It abounds in diminished seventh

Seventh chord

A seventh chord is a chord consisting of a triad plus a note forming an interval of a seventh above the chord's root. When not otherwise specified, a "seventh chord" usually means a major triad with an added minor seventh...

 chords, as in for instance the first full bar of its opening introduction:
The final movement, in C major

C major

C major is a musical major scale based on C, with pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Its key signature has no flats/sharps.Its relative minor is A minor, and its parallel minor is C minor....

, is a set of variations

Variation (music)

In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.-Variation form:...

 on a 16-bar theme, with a brief modulating interlude and final coda

Coda (music)

Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

. The last two are famous for introducing small notes which constantly divide the bar in 36 resp. 27 parts, which is very uncommon. Beethoven eventually introduces a trill which gives the impression of a further step (ie. dividing each bar into 81 parts), though this is extremely technically difficult without slowing down to half-tempo.

Beethoven’s markings indicate that he wished variations 2-4 to be played to the same basic pulse as the theme, first variation and subsequent sections (using the direction "L'istesso tempo" at each change of time signature). However, performance practice today often makes the theme and first variation slow, with wide spaces between the chords, and lets the third variation, which has a powerful, stomping, dance-like character with falling 32-part notes, come out much faster and with heavy syncopation. Mitsuko Uchida

Mitsuko Uchida

, born 20 December 1948, is a Japanese naturalized British classical pianist.-Career:Born in Atami, a seaside town close to Tokyo, Japan, Uchida moved to Vienna, Austria, with her diplomat parents when she was twelve years old, after her father was named the Japanese ambassador to Austria...

 has remarked that this variation, to a modern ear, has a striking resemblance to cheerful boogie-woogie, and the closeness of it to jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 and ragtime

Ragtime

Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...

, which were still a hundred years into the future at the time, has often been pointed out. Typical performances take 8 to 9 minutes for the first movement, and 15 to 18 minutes for the second.

The work is one of the most famous compositions of the composer's "late period" and is widely performed and recorded. The pianist Robert Taub has called it "a work of unmatched drama and transcendence ... the triumph of order over chaos, of optimism over anguish." http://web.archive.org/web/20041014030811/http://www.voxcd.com/taub_beethoven.html and Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel

Alfred Brendel KBE is an Austrian pianist, born in Czechoslovakia and a resident of the United Kingdom. He is also a poet and author.-Biography:...

 commented of the second movement that "what is to be expressed here is distilled experience" and "perhaps nowhere else in piano literature does mystical experience feel so immediately close at hand"

Asked by Anton Schindler about the work only having two movements, which is unusual for a classical sonata but not unique in Beethoven's piano output, the composer is said to have replied "I didn't have the time to write a third movement." However, this may have just as easily been the composer's prickly personality shining through since the balance between the two movements is so perfect as to obviate the need for a third.

History of the work

Beethoven conceived of the plan for his final three piano sonata

Sonata

Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...

s (op. 109

Piano Sonata No. 30 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109, composed in 1820, is the antepenultimate of his piano sonatas. In it, after the huge Hammerklavier sonata, Op. 106, Beethoven returns to a smaller scale and a more intimate character...

, 110

Piano Sonata No. 31 (Beethoven)

The Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat major, Op. 110, by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed in 1821. It is the central piano sonata in the group of three opp. 109–111 which he wrote between 1820 and 1822, and the thirty-first of his published piano sonatas....

 and 111) during the summer of 1820, while he worked on his Missa Solemnis

Missa Solemnis (Beethoven)

The Missa solemnis in D Major, Op. 123 was composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819-1823. It was first performed on April 7, 1824 in St. Petersburg, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie,...

. Although the work was only seriously outlined by 1819, the famous first theme

Theme (music)

In music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based.-Characteristics:A theme may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found . In contrast to an idea or motif, a theme is...

 of the allegro ed appassionato was found in a draft book dating from 1801–1802, contemporary to his Second Symphony

Symphony No. 2 (Beethoven)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 2 in D major was written between 1801 and 1802 and is dedicated to Prince Lichnowsky.-Background:...

. Moreover, the study of these draft books implies that Beethoven initially had plans for a sonata in three movements, quite different from that which we know: it is only thereafter that the initial theme of the first movement became that of the String Quartet No. 13

String Quartet No. 13 (Beethoven)

The String Quartet No. 13 in B major, op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven was completed in November 1825. The number traditionally assigned to it is based on the order of its publication; it is actually the fourteenth quartet in order of composition. It was premiered in March 1826 by the Schuppanzigh...

, and that what should have been used as the theme with the adagio—a slow melody in A-flat major—was abandoned. Only the motif

Motif (music)

In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....

 planned for the third movement, the famous theme mentioned above, was preserved to become that of the first movement. The Arietta, too, offers a considerable amount of research on its themes; the drafts found for this movement seem to indicate that as the second movement took form, Beethoven gave up the idea of a third movement, the sonata finally appearing to him as ideal.

Legacy

Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

 was known to have greatly admired this sonata. In two of his works - the second piano sonata and the Revolutionary Etude, he alluded to the opening and ending of the sonata's first movement, respectively (compare the opening bars of the two sonatas, and bars 77-81 of Chopin's Etude with bars 150-152 in the first movement of Beethoven's sonata).

Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...

 based the structure of his Symphony No. 2

Symphony No. 2 (Prokofiev)

Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D minor in Paris in 1924-5, during what he called "nine months of frenzied toil". He characterized this symphony as a work of "iron and steel".- Structure :...

 on this sonata.

In 2009, the Italian composer Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero

Lorenzo Ferrero is a contemporary Italian composer with a predilection for opera, a librettist, author, and book editor. He started composing at an early age and wrote over a hundred compositions thus far, including twelve operas, three ballets, and numerous orchestral, chamber music, solo...

 wrote a composition for piano solo entitled Op. 111 - Bagatella su Beethoven, which is a blend of themes from this sonata and Dmitri Shostakovich's musical monogram DSCH.

Media

External links

• A lecture by András Schiff
  András Schiff
  András Schiff is a Hungarian-born British classical pianist, who has won a number of awards including the Grammy and made numerous recordings.- Biography :...
  
  on Beethoven's piano sonata op. 111
• Recordings of this Sonata by Alberto Cobo
• For a public domain recording of this sonata visit Musopen