Compared to the others, the piano sonata is modest. It consists of a solo instrument and a single player. The soloist and orchestra in a concerto, the various sections of an orchestra in a symphony, and the foursome in a string quartet can engage each other in layered musical dialogue. In a solo piano sonata, the performers are constrained by the relatively limited interactions available to their own 10 fingers. Mozart and Haydn pushed those interactions as far as they could, given that they largely wrote for amateur pianists to play in their homes.
Beethoven wrote sonatas for himself and for performance in recital by others, shepherding the form from engaging pastime to major artistic statement. Listen to his first piano sonata, No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1, then listen to his last, No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, and you will find yourself atop Mt. McKinley after a pleasant stroll at the mountain’s base.
There are markers along the way. Most of them have nicknames. Sonata No. 8, “Pathetique,” Op. 13 (1798) is the first big one, a work that integrates a slow introduction into the very texture of its first movement. The one we call “Moonlight” (1801)—the 14th sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 in C-sharp minor—is another, given its movements of accelerating tempos.
Another feature characterizes both “Pathetique” and “Moonlight”: increasing virtuosity. Many early Beethoven piano sonatas were playable by the same enthusiastic amateurs as those who enjoyed Mozart and Haydn on their spinets. But now Beethoven began to require a level of technical pianism that escaped many amateurs.
With Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, the technical demands made a quantum leap. Along with No. 23, “Appassionata,” Op. 57, and the five last sonatas (No. 28 through 32), this one tops the list for finger-busting virtuosity.
It, too, has a nickname: the “Waldstein.” Beethoven composed it in 1804, dedicating the score to his patron, Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein. Beethoven performed the Waldstein sonata in private recitals for friends; the score was published in 1805. It has become an expected part of every concert pianist’s repertoire.
The opening movement, in common time (4/4) marked “Allegro con brio,” begins in such rhythmic intensity that you almost don’t notice the clever harmonic twist. After the iteration of a C major chord on pounding eighth notes for nearly two full measures, we instantly change key to G major. Harmonic ambiguity has been established, and it persists throughout the movement. The key will change seemingly every few seconds, and some of those changes are unlikely, to say the least.
A Fast-Paced Composition
Here is a performance by Mikhail Pletnev that gallops along at an especially brisk pace, clocking in at under 24 minutes long where the average length is 25 minutes-plus: (Listen)Events occur quickly. The first key change is at 0:03, and we rapidly reach the conclusion of the opening subject at 0:19. The opening subject is repeated, but this time 16th notes replace eighth notes in the left hand. There follows the first burst of merciless finger challenges as the 16th notes take on a musical life of their own for several measures. At measure 34 (0:53), the music settles into E major and we get a chorale-like second subject marked “dolce e molto legato,” contrasting dramatically with the aggressively detached notes of the first subject.
Did I say the second subject is in E major, about as far from C major as one might imagine? I did. Just don’t ask me how Beethoven got us there, because I don’t fully understand myself.
After some additional material in triplets, the entire exposition repeats. Development ensues that tosses the first subject around a bit and those triplets a bit more and before you know it we’re back at the main subject’s recapitulation at 6:16.
The Waldstein’s movements are generally listed as three, but I don’t understand this labeling. Beethoven clearly marks what would be the start of a slow movement “Introduzione,” meaning “introduction” to the Rondo finale, making the sonata a two-movement structure rather than three. It hardly holds water as a separate, free-standing movement, and in any case lasts less than four minutes. Its purpose (starting at 10:30) is to set up the incredible rush of energy that is the final movement beginning at 14:14.
The Rondo’s main subject is one of Beethoven’s best allegro tunes, a sprightly thing that could almost be by Mendelssohn. The bulk of the finale consists of virtuoso challenges including such things as an 11-measure trill (15:09) in the middle of the tune singing out above it and those ubiquitous 16th notes carrying on below. Between 18:53 and 19:32, Beethoven leads us through virtually every key possible. The virtuosity of the movement owes to sheer speed, but also to the fact that every key change requires a recalibration of the fingers to accommodate the new notes of the new key. Here as elsewhere, the point is that the virtuosity and the expressivity are one; each makes the other possible.
Just when you think the composer has thrown everything at the performer he could possibly muster, Beethoven at 21:40 does this: the main theme in double time! Rushing to the end in a breathless two-beat furor, the Waldstein sonata comes to a spectacular end that was just a beginning for Beethoven: Eleven more piano sonatas awaited their composition before the composer passed at the too-soon age of 56.
