[MUSIC] So in the first two movements of Opus Seven, Beethoven has displayed daring on a whole variety of fronts. On the surface, the last two movements seem to represent a return to a more traditional aesthetic, even though the very existence of the third movement is untraditional. But in choosing a minuet as his third movement, Beethoven shows that this is not where the envelope-pushing in the work is going to take place. First of all the minuet is an older, more traditional form than a scherzo, which would have been his other option at this juncture in the piece. And the character of the minuet is less typically Beethovenian than scherzo. It's less acerbic, it has less bite. Here's the opening of the movement. [MUSIC] A certain courtliness, entirely absent from the first two movements, is the most salient feature of this. What I always find myself noticing, when I play the piece start to finish, is how in every meaningful way this is entirely unlike the second movement. The first two movements of the piece are also utterly unlike, of course. But they are united by their obvious ambition, by how big they seem to be aiming. That quality is not especially in evidence here. Minuets are typically the shortest and least enterprising movements of the works they are a part of. But still, the contrast here is of such a degree, one notices it. Some of the chutzpah of the piece does return in the trio. [MUSIC] Interesting to note, the accented notes are marked "fortissimo piano." Now, "forte piano" is a way of notating an accent, which should be rather sharp, taking us out of the dynamic we've been in, and which we return to instantly after the attack of the note. Forte piano is a fairly common marking, but fortissimo piano is a rarity. No one used it, in fact, prior to Beethoven. In fact, fortissimos of any kind are extremely rare in the pre-Beethoven era. If I'm not mistaken Mozart used it exactly once in all of his piano music: in the development of the first movement of the a minor piano sonata. So, the use of that marking and the musical gesture it supports is a kind of innovation, certainly. But on the whole a listener could be fooled into thinking that this movement was Haydn. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it simply isn't true of a note of the first and the second movements. The finale, also structured as an entirely traditional rondo, has loveliness as its most salient feature. [MUSIC] Beautiful as this is, listening to it for the first time, without prior knowledge of the piece, one might be led to assume that the main thrust of the piece, its greatest moments of innovation and drama, are now in the rear view mirror. That however else the piece might break ground, it is still front-loaded in the traditional way. But Beethoven still has one more surprise in store, and the end of the work turns out to be one of its really greatest inspirations. This being a rondo, the main theme appears many times. Each time, we also have this... [MUSIC] This half cadence, every time it comes except for the very last instance, leads to the return of the opening theme. This occurs three or four times over the course of the movement. But the final time, after the major A-B-A-C-A-B-A business of the rondo has all been worked out, At the moment the listener will expect the simplest of codas, devoid of any harmonic activity, this happens. I cannot help but play the whole, extended ending. [MUSIC] This is remarkable for so many reasons. First of all, there is the introduction of a very distant key, and at a point when the piece really ought to be winding down. So far in this movement, we have ventured no further than c minor and b-flat major, which are e-flat's two closest relatives-- the relative minor and the dominant, respectively. Really, the movement, beautiful as it is, has been extremely staid harmonically, up to this point. But now we enter a foreign land. The color of e major is so different... [SOUND] e flat, [SOUND] e major, [SOUND] it paints the theme we have heard a handful of times in a different, almost a hallucinatory, light. It's much like what he does in the c minor concerto, only in this case it's more arresting still because it's in the same movement. What happens in the c minor concerto is shocking, but the movements of classical works do function independently of one another, at least up to a point. When Beethoven introduces such a distant key into the rondo of Opus 7 itself, however, it really breaks the contract he has had with the 18th-century listener. To be clear, it was well worth it. This kind of, step-wise harmonic shift... [MUSIC] is something that Beethoven later utilized much more frequently. There's one fantastic and really quite similar example, is the transitional passage at the end of the slow movement of the Emperor Concerto, a middle-period work, if there ever was one. But by then, this sort of harmonic game changer has acquired a degree of familiarity. In Opus 7 it is a fantastic kind of shock. Once this is resolved, the serenely beautiful conclusion of the work features another kind of reinvention. It is based on the central episode of the Rondo, originally in c minor, and all sturm und drang. [MUSIC] This music, while dramatic, is so "correct" in fulfilling its c episode function-- it has a totally contrasting character from the opening, it's in the relative minor-- that it actually doesn't make an enormous impression the first time around. We expect this sort of bluster that it delivers at this point in a rondo. Traditionally this c episode is of a rondo, though, makes only one appearance, so no listener from Beethoven's era would have expected to hear it again. Its transformation in the coda become a tool for Beethoven to tie up loose ends. And in the process, give it and the last movement as a whole a significance that it would not otherwise have. Until that point, the lightness of the last two movements seems to be a purposeful contrast to the various types of hugeness we get in the first two, just as Haydn and Mozart would have done. And, I'm sure that I would find the work fully satisfying if the last movement ended on the same wavelength as it begins. But, at the last moment, Beethoven transforms the last movement from a formality to a suitably proportioned conclusion to the whole work. The first two movements are still where the most happens, but the last movement holds its own now. And the end is what really lingers in the memory after hearing the piece. This represents a significant first step towards a total reinvention of the shape of a sonata, about which there will be much more to say in the coming lecture. I hope this will have whetted your appetite to listen to the whole sonata. Now, obviously, there are a host of excellent recordings. As I said in the syllabus, I grew up with Artur Schnabel's and with Richard Goode's complete recording of the sonatas, and I still deeply treasure both of them. Each is in its own way a document of its era at its best. The Schnabel is ever-imaginative, headlong in the faster movements and memorably searching in poise in the second one. Goode is somehow able to simultaneously give the impression of deep consideration and total freedom, which is a pretty neat trick. In the interest of full disclosure, this is also among the sonatas that I have recorded already in the second volume of my projected cycle, God help us. Anyway, thank you for watching, and for listening once again. The next time we meet the year will be 1801, which is one of the most unsettled, and therefore most interesting, moments in Beethoven's compositional life. There will be lots to discuss. And since we'll be going through a lot of music that day, there won't be a lot of time for me to play. Which means it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to listen to the sonatas we will be addressing in advance. If you have time, those are the sonatas Opus 26, the two sonatas Opus 27, and Opus 28. No worries if you don't have time to get to it. Until then have a great week, and I'll see you next time. Let's take a short break for a review question.
