(MUSIC) A quick note about this sonata’s nickname: unlike “Pathetique”, “Moonlight”, “Pastorale”, or “Appassionata”, which try and, to one degree or another, fail to convey the character of the work at hand, the name “Waldstein” is not descriptive. The Count Waldstein was one of Beethoven’s more generous patrons, and this work – in addition to a number of others – was dedicated to him. I’m not quite sure why this particular piece, as opposed to another of the works Beethoven offered him, has Waldstein’s name attached to it in the public imagination. It’s a bit like the “Archduke” Trio – Beethoven dedicated more pieces to the Archduke Rudolph than to any other individual. But when we say “The Archduke”, we mean the trio, and when we say “The Waldstein”, we mean the Sonata. Occasionally, I find myself wishing that this sonata were known by a more descriptive title: if it had a term like “misterioso”, or perhaps “solar system” attached to it, we might well listen to it in a different, more enlightened way. Be that as it may, the time has come to start listening to it! Here is the exposition of the Waldstein’s first movement: (MUSIC) So! A more thoroughly eventful 2-and-a-half minutes of music would be difficult to imagine. The piece is exceptional, in the literal sense of the word, from its very first notes. This first “theme” is not really a theme at all – beginning with no fewer than 14 repeated chords, marked “pianissimo”, this is a theme with little harmony and even less melody – it is 95% defined by its rhythm and by its marvelous sonority, bristling with potential energy, but seeming to come from very far away. (MUSIC) To me, hearing this opening is a bit like looking at the horizon: when you look at the horizon, you can’t quite tell where the sea ends and the sky begins, and in a good performance of the Waldstein, you almost don’t sense where the silence ends and the piece starts. This unlikely combination of extreme subtlety and mystery on the one hand, and an almost primal force on the other, is to become one of the sonata’s hallmarks. Again, only after 14 repetitions of that opening C major chord, do we have motion – towards the dominant, (MUSIC), and something resembling a motive (MUSIC). It’s not exactly expansive or anything, but Beethoven will be characteristically resourceful in milking that figure (MUSIC) for more than one would ever imagine it to be worth. But having flirte d with normalcy – melody! motion! – Beethoven goes right back to the hushed chordal world of the opening, and in fact ratchets up the “misterioso” quality by moving it down to the 7th scale degree. (MUSIC) This is an arresting move – we expect classical works to have the dominant as their first destination. Maybe the subdominant, in an already unusual case. But just as in the Appassionata Sonata, Beethoven immediately aims for the otherworldly by RAISING the music a step (MUSIC), here he takes us somewhere surreal by LOWERING the music a step, in this case a whole step (MUSIC). This B-flat is not even a part of the C major scale (MUSIC), which should help convey what a curveball Beethoven throws in phrase number two! And by the end of phrase 2, Beethoven has thickened the plot further, bending the music towards minor. Whereas the first phrase ended resolutely in major (MUSIC), the second one pivots, (MUSIC), and as the piece’s energy for the first time grows more kinetic and urgent, the question of whether we are in the minor or the major mode is raised. (MUSIC) Now, we immediately move back to major after that hard landing on the G (MUSIC), but remarkably, within this first paragraph of music, three of the sonata’s central themes have been established: 1. A magical, far-in-the-distance sonority, which will recur again and again, 2. A penchant for going to surprising key areas, which becomes hugely significant later on in the movement, and 3. A tendency to hover between the major and minor, creating a very specific kind of tension. That is a LOT of stage-setting accomplished in a mere thirteen measures!!
