Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven)
Dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria , the Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106 (“ Hammerklaviersonata ”) is Beethoven's most difficult piano work in intellectual and technical terms .
"In terms of scope and structure, the Hammerklavier Sonata goes far beyond anything that has ever been dared and mastered in the field of sonata composition."
The Great Sonata for the fortepiano was long considered unplayable and was only played in public for the first time decades after Beethoven's death by Franz Liszt .
Classification in Beethoven's work
The sonata is at the center of Beethoven's late work. In this so-called third creative period, the other “titanic” works, the 9th Symphony , the Missa solemnis , the late string quartets and the Diabelli Variations were also created .
Beethoven occupied himself with the sonata form all his life. As an admirer of Bach , he turned to the baroque fugue in his later works , which is also evidenced by the contrapuntal style of the hammer piano sonata. Beethoven turned the trill , which was previously intended as an ornament , into a stylistic element of abstract music; Like the finale of the Waldstein Sonata , the Sonatas op. 106, op. 109 and above all op. 111 are examples that are as famous as they are feared. Perhaps most impressive is the deaf composer's joy in harmonic experimentation. It allows works such as the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Great Fugue op. 133 to appear as “New Music” today. Too dissonant for the contemporary audience , these works are still very few understood today.
Emergence
Beethoven sketched the Hammerklavier Sonata in the autumn of 1817. Only 47 years old and largely deaf , from March 1818 he was only able to communicate with the help of conversation books. He was also fighting over his nephew Karl and had financial problems.
“The sonata is written in urgent circumstances; for it is hard to write almost for the bread; I've come that far. "
During this difficult time the first thoughts on the Missa solemnis, the 9th and a 10th symphony can be found. They seem to have fertilized each other and other works. Sometime in 1818 the first autograph of the Great Sonata was finished. Like all of the engraving models that Beethoven had reviewed, it has unfortunately been lost. Letters and the first editions of that time, published in Vienna and London in 1819, are therefore the only sources.
"Desperation, escape plans, fears of death, but also a clear awareness of one's own mastery, artistic self-confidence and a grandiose will to assert oneself went into the Hammerklavier Sonata."
Structure and analysis
According to the “conventional” sonata pattern of the Viennese Classic , the hammer piano sonata has four movements ; Beethoven divides, varies and expands them in a “breathtaking” way. Conflicts and solutions make the sonata a milestone in music history, especially in formal terms.
All movements are characterized by the third and the harmonic contrast between B flat major and B minor - majestic and powerful one key , “black” (also for Beethoven himself) the other key . Although the sonata finds itself in every key, the B / b pair keeps returning, e.g. B. in the recapitulation , when the fanfares of the opening bars suddenly sound in the minor key and shift the whole event into immense depths.
First sentence
Allegro ( B flat major , Allabreve ) - Beethoven is the only one of his piano sonatas to have metronomized the great in all movements . 
For almost 200 years pianists and musicologists have been discussing whether the first movement with = 138 is “correct” and “playable”. The force of the trumpet-like opening motif already indicates the new dimensions of musical expression: seven-part fortissimo chords as an introduction, followed by a fermata . Then a vocal theme with harmonically highly ambiguous middle voices. Alternating, fast-paced octaves expand from bass to treble and lead back to the tonic fanfare of the beginning. This is followed by a more lyrical second theme , now in G major (a minor third removed from B major), with the final part of the exposition again tying into the beginning of the fortissimo.
The very intensive implementation is in E flat major , the dotted rhythm of Anfangsfanfare is an ever richer becoming cannon sent that diverges again and again, despite all the improvements taking place, seemingly never comes to a (redeeming) end. The last increase in fortissimo chords also ends in a ritardando and Beethoven modulates in B minor and major, with the cantabile closing thought of the exposition now acting as a transition to the recapitulation .
This is now back in the tonic and basically repeats the exposition. And yet everything is different: Suddenly there are secondary voices in the first topic, everything becomes more restless, more excited, more unstable. The harmony moves even further away from B flat major than in the exposition, to culminate at the end of the first theme in the “Schreckensfanfare” in B minor. But Beethoven does not stop at this “tragic” point either, the musical direction changes again, the second theme is again in B flat major, but has also undergone various changes.
The coda with its broken octaves is very demanding in terms of piano technique; after the melody of the final group has played again, the movement closes on a fantasy about the opening chords in fortissimo .
Second sentence
Scherzo Vivace Assai - B-major / minor b, 3 / 4 -stroke
Beethoven already wrote amiable and eccentric, cryptic and biting piano scherzos in the Piano Sonatas Op. 2 , Op. 14 , Op. 26 and Op. 31, No. 3 , but - perhaps apart from the 2nd movement of the 9th Symphony - no comparable profound one . The dotted quarters could stand for “serious amusement” - if they didn't have to be played “very lively”. Not to rush here ( 3 ⁄ 4 = 80), to find the right tone and not to override the dynamic rules in a confined space is more than just "difficult". The B minor section with empty tonic octaves in one hand and expansive triplets in the other drives the drama forward. The bubbling and also shrouded Semplice builds an enormous internal stress, which in Presto discharges: In three times eight 2 / 4 -Takten the corotating widen Piano - eighth over Sextakkorde to Fortissimo - octaves , in the F Major - dominant - with sforzato on every quarter - plunge into the bass and, after a respite in the F- scale, storm prestissimo into the treble . Eighth note fermata followed by a tremolated dominant seventh chord . Three-quarters pause - and the dotted Scherzo theme is back - dolce, as if it was all just a joke. The four-bar Allabreve -Presto shows that it wasn't one . 20 hammered double octaves finally fall from B to B. Another three-bar shadow of the dotted theme. End in pianissimo .
Third movement (with audio)
Adagio sostenuto, Appassionato e con molto sentimento - fis minor, 6 / 8 -Stroke
- Piano Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, op.106: III. Adagio sostenuto -
Beethoven added the famous opening bar - Una corda, mezza voce - months after it was completed. “As if brought from immeasurable depth” ( Theodor Adorno ), the two octaves in the A major third lead to the overwhelming F sharp minor theme - deep sorrow in sublime calm. From it the second theme rises in the same key. Con grand 'espressione sings it powerfully and proudly over middle voices and tonic chords in the bass.
Although it is again in the form of a sonata main clause , the Adagio resembles a movement of variations , because all themes recur in different forms. Beethoven anticipates “romantic” piano music: the polyphonic opening theme is reminiscent of Schumann or Brahms . In the transition to the second theme, the interweaving of accompaniment and melody is reminiscent of Chopin's Nocturnes .
Changes in themes are typical of Beethoven's late work, but as in the Arietta of op. 111 they find their highest expression in this Adagio. Topics are broken down into thirty-second runs and enriched with figurations, middle voices and decorations. With the modulations , Beethoven overcomes all - including his own - conventions. Despite all the tension and breadth, the third movement is a point of calm and an expression of melancholy meditation. Leaving everything earthly behind, it ends in Aitheric F sharp major .
Fourth sentence
Largo, Un poco piu vivace, Allegro, Prestissimo, 4 ⁄ 4 - Allegro risoluto, 3 ⁄ 4
An improvisational game with measure, tempo, rhythm and key leads from the abysses of the Adagio to the mighty final fugue. Dolce gently lead F octaves over D flat major and B flat minor to G flat major - the enharmonic F sharp of the Adagios. In thirty-second runs and "a little more lively" it goes to the B major , held in Tempo I , the dominant of the now sinking F sharp major. In the parallel key of G sharp minor, first two, then four voices in five bars announce the fugue. Via simple basic chords in Tempo I, the B major finds its way to the A major via the subdominant E major and the parallel key in C sharp minor . The tenuto quote at the beginning falls in exploding syncopations from fortissimo to pianissimo and ends, as the introduction began - in F major, the subdominant of B major in the first movement and the fugue.
The Allegro risoluto ( 1 ⁄ 4 = 144) begins with soft trills on the F chord, which lead in four bars to the main theme of the Fuga a tre voci, con alcune license . It is one of the greatest contrapuntal works by Beethoven and is considered one of the most difficult movements in piano literature. The theme is based on descending sixteenth notes and is played through in countless variations in the following almost 400 bars. In the meantime, a second theme is added in quarters, which sometimes sounds at the same time as the first.
Beethoven sends the issue here by all possible processes of change that are known from the baroque fugues Art: enlargement, return ( crab - this greatest of all change is one of the highlights of the sentence in B Minor), reversal , eventually even original and reversal at the same time. The whole thing escalates into a huge coda accompanied by trills, to finally end with the same fortissimo chords as the early B flat major sonata .
Quotes
“The hammer piano sonata is also demanding. Touched by it, one becomes impatient with a lot of mediocre and moderate things, which, who knows how, play themselves up and yet are nothing more than a higher form of harassment. "
"The Hammerklavier Sonata doesn't get any easier if you don't play it."
Orchestral version
In 1925/26 the Austrian conductor and composer Felix Weingartner created an orchestral version of the Hammerklavier Sonata. It was premiered on November 14, 1926 in Essen by the municipal orchestra conducted by August Max Fiedler . In the same year it was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in print.
Felix Weingartner himself has a very old recording (with a London orchestra) from around 1930, which has since been published several times. It is an interesting contemporary document, shows Weingartner's timeless and clear conducting concept, but its sound is very unsatisfactory. The Munich conductor and composer Kurt Graunke had a special relationship with this version throughout his life and recorded it with his symphony orchestra ( here called Bavaria Symphony Orchestra ) for the Urania company in mono in the recording studio (now available on YouTube). This recording is however Long out of print and hardly available - even antiquarian ones.
In 1970 he played this orchestral version again in one of his symphony concerts in Munich. ( Graunke's good personal contacts with the Wieder Philharmoniker, who had the orchestral parts in their archive, were very helpful in getting to the orchestral material, which was inaccessible at the time - in East and West. ) The Bavarian Radio recorded this concert live and this recording was played on the radio again and again - mostly in post-concerts. However, this recording is not generally accessible. A satisfactory recording of the orchestral version is still missing today; surprising since many of his works - including arrangements - are now available in very successful CD productions. Christoph Schlüren also criticized this in the foreword to the new edition of the score published by Repertoire Explorer. However, Weingartner's version has now been performed several times in concerts, including on November 8, 2015 in the Beethovenhaus in Bonn.
See also
literature
- Joachim Kaiser : Beethoven's thirty-two piano sonatas and their interpreters. Fischer, 1999, ISBN 3-596-23601-0 .
- Siegfried Mauser : Beethoven's piano sonatas. CH Beck, 2001, ISBN 3-406-41873-2 .
- Erwin Ratz : Introduction to the theory of musical forms. 3. Edition. Universal Edition, 1973.
- Jürgen Uhde : Beethoven's piano music. Reclam, 2000, ISBN 3-15-010151-4 .
Web links
- Beethoven House in Bonn with the original score, letters and sketches
- Raptus Association for Music Appreciation Background information and analysis on all of the master's works
- Alfred Brendel's thoughts on the 32 piano sonatas in essay form (English)
- Piano Sonata No. 29 (Beethoven) : Sheet music and audio files in the International Music Score Library Project
- Giovanni Bellucci plays Beethoven Sonata op.106 Hammerklavier Mov II Video on YouTube
- Giovanni Bellucci plays Beethoven Sonata op.106 Hammerklavier Mov IV Video on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dr. FG Wegeler and Ferdinand Ries, Biographical Notes on Ludwig van Beethoven, Coblenz: K. Bädeker. 1838, p. 150. (digitized)
- ↑ Joachim Kaiser: Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas and their interpreters . Frankfurt am Main 1975, ISBN 3-10-038601-9
- ↑ Key characteristics
- ↑ C. Schlüren: Introduction to the orchestral version ( Memento of the original from October 29, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. with foreword by Weingartner and first page of the score
