Beethoven's Piano Sonatas

[Madiel]

Keyboards simply didn't have as many keys. THAT is how he was pushing the boundaries of the instrument.

And this whole argument about how you would want different registers is a bit mystifying. It depends entirely on what music you're wanting to write as to whether is a bug or a feature. Anyone who has ever played an instrument that has different registers, such as a clarinet, knows that the register change can either be used to advantage or a total pain in the butt. Trying to construct a universal rule about it just doesn't work.

[Mandryka]

Keyboards simply didn't have as many keys. THAT is how he was pushing the boundaries of the instrument.

And this whole argument about how you would want different registers is a bit mystifying. It depends entirely on what music you're wanting to write as to whether is a bug or a feature. Anyone who has ever played an instrument that has different registers, such as a clarinet, knows that the register change can either be used to advantage or a total pain in the butt. Trying to construct a universal rule about it just doesn't work.

This all sounds very plausible.

[Madiel]

This all sounds very plausible.

You keep saying that to people. I'm not sure why.

[Mandryka]

You keep saying that to people. I'm not sure why.

That all sounds quite plausible.

[prémont]

Keyboards simply didn't have as many keys. THAT is how he was pushing the boundaries of the instrument.

This demands a closer explanation. Did he write notes, which weren't available on the keyboards he had at his disposition? Or do we know he complained that the keyboards of his time didn't have enough notes?

[Madiel]

This demands a closer explanation. Did he write notes, which weren't available on the keyboards he had at his disposition? Or do we know he complained that the keyboards of his time didn't have enough notes?

I can't recall which sonata it is but there is at least one where a line descends an octave lower in the recapitulation, halfway through the line, and it's thought to have been out of necessity.

I'd have to remember where I read about this issue because it's been a number of years.

[Madiel]

But any pianist can see for composers generally, not just Beethoven, the way that composers take advantage of the higher and lower notes once they become available.

Why did they ever become available then? It has to be at least 1 out of 2 reasons and quite plausibly both: either composers asked for them and/or the technology improved to make those notes possible.

[Mandryka]

This is what Tom Beghin says

Tilman Skowroneck has reminded us that starting with
the fugue from Opus 106, Beethoven stayed within the six-octave range CC to c4 for all his remaining piano works, including
the Bagatelles written after the receipt of the Broadwood, Opus
119 (starting with No. 6) and Opus 126; the Diabelli Variations,
Opus 120; and the three late Piano Sonatas, Opus 109, 110, and
111.5 There are only two exceptions, two instances of notes that
lie outside the range of the six-octave Broadwood: three high
C-sharps on the last page of Opus 109 and one high E-flat in the
first movement of Opus 111. For the latter note, however, already
in the autograph—that is, the original manuscript—Beethoven
specifies an alternative version, or ossia; it is a remarkable reflex
betraying his own private reality. The high C-sharp in Opus 109
requires more explanation, but just acknowledging this note and
finding the solution to play it spectacularly increases the relevance of the Broadwood for this sonata. I discuss the note below . . .

There is one note in Opus 109 that exceeds the six-octave range of
Beethoven's Broadwood:16 a high C-sharp that recurs three times
as part of the last variation, at the end of the third movement, just
before the final return of the unadorned cantabile theme (track 3,
10:25–10:41). After having been avoided for so long, this highest
note of the whole sonata (played by my right hand's pinkie) soars
triumphantly over a long sustained trill (played by the lower fingers of my right hand) and wild scalar flourishes that crisscross
the middle part of the keyboard (played by my full left hand). The
C-sharp is itself part of a note-by-note reminder of the theme
that has been transposed up by two octaves. It functions as a major-second appoggiatura, gorgeously stretching the reach of the
melodic line. But there is no key for it on the Broadwood. What to
do? Leave out the note? Replace it?
Here's the clincher: Nowhere else in the sonata does Beethoven
write a high C-natural, leaving open at least the option of retuning the high C as a C-sharp. I stress option over obligation, because Beethoven was known to have retorted to a well-meaning colleague, "They all like to tune it, but they shall not touch it" ("it"
in reference to his new Broadwood and "they" to his Viennese
piano-builder friends),17 and visitors had heard him playing on the
instrument despite its wretched tuning, so it seems fair to assume
that the issue of an accurate single pitch would not have been
important at all. The note in question, furthermore, is part of the
highest of registers, which would have been all but impossible for
him to hear.
For Beethoven, then, the discrepancy between imagined and
actual, realized sound could easily be lived with. But also for a
well-hearing person, there is something intensely powerful about
playing a sharp on a key that is supposed to be a natural. It is as
if at that very moment one succeeds, by sheer force of will, in
embodying those highest piano strings (all three of them, for one
key) and making them behave like one's vocal cords, stretching
what physically still feels like a minor second (one's fifth finger
gliding to the next key below) to a major-second appoggiatura
(creating a full tone or the equivalent of an additional key in between). The pianist, finding this sublime voice, self-identifies with
the piano in such a way as to transcend technological reality. (An
association with the human voice is entirely warranted: in the autograph of the sonata Beethoven had called the theme Gesang or
"song"—but changed this indication to gesangvoll, "singingly," by
the first publication.) At the same time, Beethoven would have found comfort in the option of scordatura: to take the tuning hammer and raise the pitch
of a single note on the keyboard without making another pitch unavailable in its stead. The sonata, in other words, remains executable in its entirety on the kind of keyboard that Beethoven had.
Beethoven may have been the only pianist-composer with a magnificent Broadwood in Vienna—a unique circumstance that must
have flattered his ego—but the context is still one of a composer at
his keyboard, the latter serving as a tool or interface for his ideas.
Writing the C-sharp is not a story of vision or sheer imagination:
Beethoven's "C-natural that wants to be a C-sharp" may tweak materiality, but it does so in an utterly clever and concrete way.
C-natural or C-sharp: the question had been planted long before
(or had been on Beethoven's mind), particularly in the coda of the
first movement. Listen to track 1, 03:11–03:30, where the pianist
cannot make up his mind: will he go for a major or minor tonality,
for C-sharp or C-natural? But ultimately we do not have to choose.
By the end of the sonata, sound yields to touch and imagination—a
deeply positive message for the hard-of-hearing composer.

[Madiel]

The first paragraph makes sense.

Beethoven wrote a note and then specified an ossia for pianos that couldn't play it. That's the bit that is most relevant to what I was saying.

The rest strikes me as a flight of fantasy trying to avoid the more obvious conclusion that Beethoven would have liked a piano with a C sharp despite not having such a piano, by constructing an elaborate argument about why Beethoven couldn't possibly have written something that wasn't 100% satisfactory on his own instrument, and so couldn't have actually meant what he wrote.

An argument that goes against the fact already acknowledged in the first paragraph that he did write something, in op.111, that couldn't be played on his own piano.

[Madiel]

In any case, I'm not at all sure that what I was talking about was one of those late sonatas and that piano. Before the Broadwood he had other pianos with a smaller range than 6 octaves.

I suspect the thing I have in mind was in Tovey's analysis of the sonatas. But for various reasons I haven't a clue where my copy of Tovey is right now so I can't check.

[Brian]

First post here in almost two months.



Igor Levit's sonata has hit streaming! In my case, NML. As expected, the late sonatas volumes are his earlier 2013 recordings, and the other 27 are new. I'm sampling 11, 12, 21, and 28 (the last of which is from the original sessions, so I've probably totally heard it before).

From 11 and 12, the impression I get is of a guy who likes big tempo contrasts. The slow movements of both are sloooow; the Adagio con molto espressione in 11 really does have molto espressione, played very softly, almost like a cross between nocturne and Italian aria. The funeral march is, sorry about the pun, deadly. And not in a good way. (Compare his 7:22 here to 5:49 Pollini, 5:41 Kovacevich/EMI, 5:47 Serkin, 6:09 Lucchesini, 6:31 Annie Fischer.) It's such an enormous relief when the finale arrives that my brain barely had the processing power to notice how fleet, fast, and delicate Levit made it.

But even within movements - especially scherzo/trio - Levit plays up contrasts and gear shifts, too. It's hard to generalize about what's good and not, too, because the adagio in Op. 22 is so good and the rest of my favorite things have been bits of passage work and virtuosity that are just super, super clean and effortless-sounding.

There are softer bits of Waldstein where Levit is a little bit precious and dainty - like he's frustrated by not having a HIP instrument with a moderator to produce a mute effect - and once again the slow movement is so muted it's almost haunted. Something you'd play on a rainy day after everyone leaves a funeral. Overall, the performance is coherent, but a little too light-toned for me. Hard to describe what I mean - maybe the piano itself (not named in the booklet) is the problem, because listening to the instrument gives me a little bit of aural fatigue with all the upper-register playing. There is a big thump of Levit's foot stomping in the coda.

No. 28 is a measured, "cool" performance that, in hindsight, points out the way that Levit would soon be filling many of the other sonatas with alternations between clean staccato fast playing, impossibly polished runs, and moments of major hush/calm. Gotta respect the way he very nearly reproduces the HIP mute pedal effect on whatever instrument he's using. Also a tendency to a sort of dynamic slowness - ie, slowness in overall feel but not in moment-by-moment rhythmic energy.

The results are mixed. Overall, this is probably not my "thing", but I do think he is successful at carving out a personal style and an individual voice, and maintaining it through the 7 sonatas I've heard so far, including the final three. The new stuff is very Levit-y. If you're a fan, yay. I'm not sure yet.

[Todd]

From 11 and 12, the impression I get is of a guy who likes big tempo contrasts...

...But even within movements - especially scherzo/trio - Levit plays up contrasts and gear shifts, too.

My set arrived Friday, and I'm doing a run through in disc and hence opus number order.  Your observations on tempo contrasts and other contrasts within movements is true in the first seven sonatas.  So far his playing is never bad, but sometimes it is strangely unengaging - and at other times it is absolutely brilliant, with insights and details I've never heard before.  Levit truly does some new things - in Op 2/3 he manages to mix his contrasts into one passage where he plays the accompaniment fortissimo and then the right melody emerges in a sort of late period haze.  Op 7 is sort of all over the place, but in a good way.  He launches 10/1 with ascending arpeggios so fast they almost sound like chords, and he delivers a hefty 10/3.  On the definite no-no side, he skips the repeat in the 2/1 closer. 

I was planning on just listening to the set and abandoning lengthy note taking and descriptions - the Rasch and Williams sets made me want to give up the practice altogether - but Levit may force me to listen with utmost attention.  It's been a long while since I listened to his take on the last five sonatas, so maybe this time around I'll find them more engaging.  Or maybe Levit's novelty will pay more dividends earlier on.

[staxomega]

I've been absolutely enamored by Peter Serkin playing Op. 111. This is personally the best 111 I have heard on the fortepiano, he conveys the menace, darkness and tension of the opening movement remarkably well given the limitations and plays the final movement slightly more on the slow side which is to my taste.

[Mandryka]

I've been absolutely enamored by Peter Serkin playing Op. 111. This is personally the best 111 I have heard on the fortepiano, he conveys the menace, darkness and tension of the opening movement remarkably well given the limitations and plays the final movement slightly more on the slow side which is to my taste.

I'm a glass half full person, it's not that the piano has limitations, it's that he uses its strengths - especially the colours - well. I like it when pianists bring out the ups and downs of the first movement, give it lots of relief.

In the second movement he takes the first few variations at a speed close to the theme, someone once told me that  the idea of speeding them up comes from Schnabel. I've become so used to the Schnabel approach that I find it quite hard to listen to pianists who don't follow it, it could be just a matter of realigning expectations.

[JBS]

I listened to the first CD of Stewart Goodyear's cycle tonight.

The sonics were extremely good. The playing was very good. But the packaging is probably the chinziest I have ever met, with one exception (EMI France's 50 CD set of LvB's Masterworks).

[staxomega]

I'm a glass half full person, it's not that the piano has limitations, it's that he uses its strengths - especially the colours - well. I like it when pianists bring out the ups and downs of the first movement, give it lots of relief.

In the second movement he takes the first few variations at a speed close to the theme, someone once told me that  the idea of speeding them up comes from Schnabel. I've become so used to the Schnabel approach that I find it quite hard to listen to pianists who don't follow it, it could be just a matter of realigning expectations.

I'm an optimist as well, and I certainly agree with your assessment on its strengths. Regarding the second movement I don't mind either approach as long as it has that transcendental quality, I find that some that do play the first two variations close to the theme turn in a slightly dry third variation, but that is something that doesn't particularly bother me. I was never mad about this section.

I've just finished watching the documentary with Tom Beghin, I have his set next up in my listening.

[Todd]

Martino Tirimo's complete piano works cycle arrived on Friday.  It is a stealth cycle, having been recorded between 2008 and 2018.  Mr Tirimo supplies the liner notes and Francesco Tirimo supplies the artist photos.  Works are presented in order of composition, which means no sonatas proper until disc three. 

I hope other stealth cycles arrive in the Beethoven year.  (And I really hope the Riefling set is reissued.)

[Todd]

Some reissues for 2020.  The Lewis set is ~$25.00 pre-order at Amazon.

[SonicMan46]

Some reissues for 2020.  The Lewis set is ~$25.00 pre-order at Amazon.

Hi Todd - concerning Paul Lewis - 14 CDs for $25!  Just looked at the Fanfare Archive - Dubins loved the Concertos - three reviews of the Sonatas, 2 highly positive and one nearly so (Lynn Renee Bayley who I often do not like) - I've not listened to any of Lewis' Beethoven recordings - how does he currently rank in your esteemed ratings?  Thanks - Dave

[J.A.W.]

Hi Todd - concerning Paul Lewis - 14 CDs for $25!  Just looked at the Fanfare Archive - Dubins loved the Concertos - three reviews of the Sonatas, 2 highly positive and one nearly so (Lynn Renee Bayley who I often do not like) - I've not listened to any of Lewis' Beethoven recordings - how does he currently rank in your esteemed ratings?  Thanks - Dave

Last time I checked Lewis' Beethoven was in Todd's 4th tier.