1st mvt: The Slow Introduction as a Major Addition to Sonata Form

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From the course by Curtis Institute of Music

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Part 2

70 ratings

Curtis Institute of Music

Exploring Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Part 2

70 ratings

Welcome to Part 2 of Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas! I'm delighted to launch another set of new lectures of this course as Part 2. As before, this class is meant for people of all levels of experience with Beethoven's music (including no experience at all!). Remember that you are able to watch the lectures as many times as you like, at whatever pace is comfortable for you. As I’ve done with the first set of Beethoven lectures, I look forward to meeting with students—online and in person, in various cities. The dates and locations will be posted in the Announcements and Events section, as part of the course content. So please remember to check back there for details. In these four new lectures, we will explore the following sonatas: • Sonata Op. 2, No. 3 • Sonata Op. 13 (“Pathetique”) • Sonata Op. 53 (“Waldstein”) • Sonata Op. 90 The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation supports Curtis’s lifelong learning initiatives.

From the lesson

Op. 13, "Pathetique"

The course continues with Beethoven's Op. 13 Sonata, nicknamed the "Pathétique." Known for its high drama and pathos, the "Pathétique" is a gem from Beethoven's early period and is one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas. In this lecture, Mr. Biss uncovers how Beethoven achieves these intense characters within the context of a classical sonata.

A Groundbreaking, Overexposed Masterwork4:02

1st mvt: The Slow Introduction as a Major Addition to Sonata Form6:46

1st mvt: An Exposition in Constant Upward Motion8:44

1st mvt: The Introduction's Complex, Revolutionary Role9:16

1st mvt: Subverting Expectations until the Bitter End5:56

2nd mvt: Beethoven at his most Sublimely Lyrical9:47

2nd mvt: The Emotional Power of Structural Simplicity7:03

3rd mvt: Introducing an Element of Ambiguity3:23

3rd mvt: Tying the Movement to the Rest of the Work, Devastatingly10:15

Meet the Instructors

Jonathan Biss
Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies
Performance Faculty

(MUSIC)

The Pathetique Sonata is in three movements.

While this was the absolute norm for sonatas prior to Beethoven, it was not necessarily

his preferred model early in life.

Of the first 11 published sonatas – that’s all the sonatas up through opus 22 – 6 have

4 movements, and the remaining 5 have 3.

(I apologize if some of this is review, but it plays into the question of why this sonata

is distinctive, so it really does bear repetition.)

So, two important things you’ll probably recall from prior lectures on some of the

4 movement sonatas from the early period:

1, these are pieces of grand, symphonic proportions, .

and 2, most of the heft, the meat in these sonatas is to be found in their first halves –

their first two movements.

So, by contrast, the three movement sonatas of the early period tend to be significantly

less symphonic, less ambitious, really.

I realize this might seem self-evident – why would a three movement sonata carry as much

weight as a four movement one?

But Mozart did write a number of symphonies in three movements, and anyway, the additional

movement in a four-movement work – usually a menuet or a scherzo – it's in itself neither

lengthy nor substantial.

But the fact of the matter is that Beethoven’s early three-movement sonatas are generally

on the lighter side.

The two sonatas opus 14, in particular, have enormous charm because, not in spite, of their

modest scope and character.

The “Pathetique” is very much an exception to this rule.

It might lack a fourth movement, but nothing about it comes off as small, or modest.

It is bold, both in character and in design, and it makes a big noise right from its outset,

and it has all the emotional severity one expects of Beethoven when he is working in

his beloved C minor.

As for the other major point about the early four-movement sonatas, the way in which they

are weighted towards their first two movements: in the case of the early three movement-sonatas,

when there is a weight and scope to them at all, it tends to be in their first movements.

There are exceptions to this – the sonata opus 10 number 1, with its lengthy and raptly

beautiful slow movement comes to mind – but the Pathetique is definitely NOT one of them.

In this, by far the most symphonic of Beethoven’s early period three movement sonatas, the innovation,

and the ferocity, belong largely to the first movement, as we shall see.

So, that’s been a lot of talk with no playing!

Normally, this would be the point in the lecture where I say “here is the exposition of the

first movement”: beginning at the beginning.

But in the case of the Pathetique, there is music which precedes the exposition: it has

a slow introduction.

Now, this is quite a thing, because unless I’m mistaken, this is the first piano sonata

to have an introduction.

So, this is unprecedented, but I wouldn’t go as far as to to say that it's revolutionary, because

it’s an idea that Beethoven is really just borrowing from other genres.

Haydn and Mozart symphonies frequently include slow introductions, and Mozart does it reasonably

often in his chamber works as well.

In fact, Beethoven had already himself written a piano trio with this feature –

the opus 1, number 2.

It’s revealing that this structure – an adagio, or grave, followed by a sonata allegro

– was so commonplace in symphonies but unheard of in the piano sonata; it shows that Haydn

and Mozart took the genre less seriously.

But just as Beethoven decided that the four movement form would suit him well for the

piano sonata, he also decided that a slow introduction could give a sonata

a gravity it might otherwise lack.

Once again, we see that Beethoven had big plans for the piano sonata, right from the beginning.

So, while the inclusion of this introduction is about Beethoven borrowing, not really inventing,

what he DOES with the introduction is pretty much without any precedent, and is a very

significant development, for him and for sonata form in general.

No spoilers yet!

But now it's time for me, at long last, to play that introduction.

(MUSIC)

Straight out of the gate, this introduction establishes one of the sonata’s features:

its penchant for strong, uncompromised characters.

No one would deny the emotional depth of the music, but it is not emotionally complex.

This, interestingly, is not atypical of Beethoven: his music is philosophical, it asks big questions,

it is frequently searching, but whereas Mozart flits between moods, changing on a dime, Beethoven

tends to be monomaniacal.

As we’ve seen in so many other sonatas already, one idea, and one emotional landscape, can

occupy him to the exclusion of all else.

This introduction – and the Pathetique, altogether – is a perfect example of that.

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