The development of the first movement is an extreme manifestation of the movement as a whole, very compact and fuzzy glorious. This economy of expression is established right away. A modulation from the E-flat major that ended the exposition to the F-minor that will begin the development is achieved in just one bar and really with just one note. Talk about packing meaning in, it's not just about demodulation, the character of that final gesture of exposition was so unstressed. But when the chords turn into octaves and that E-flat drops down to a D-flat, the music's muscles immediately tense up. That is perhaps one of the things that links these last three sonatas. Opus 109 and Opus 110 especially they're not altogether long pieces and yet there are moments within them that conveys so much meaning in jest bars with the barest of materials. So, having modulated to F-minor and taken the air out of the room, Beethoven is ready to begin to developed. The transformation of the opening theme is extraordinary. The first two bars have the exact same melodic notes as the beginning of the piece. But now with F-minor, the context is different. To really booster the new heavy dark insistent character, Beethoven gives this version of the theme a nonstop 16th note accompaniment, and a nonstop crescendo. If the key of F-minor and the world wide character had not been well established already, they certainly are now. From this point on, the development is as simple as it is remarkable. A series of 3, 4 bar phrases each identical in shape, all over a working base, moving inevitably inexorably back to the home key of a flat major. The absolute regularity of this, is a critical component of its power. Each for bar phrase is divided into two parts. Each of the two parts is nothing more than a transposed version of the opening. Each of the three phrases is harmonically stable until the fourth bar at which point it modulates. One, two, three, four. One, two, four. Each two-bar unit has the same hairpin crescendo and diminuendo crusting of the second beat of the second bar. This emphasis on the second beat of the bar was already implied in the opening of the piece just by virtue of it being a rhythmic landing point. For this reason, I've always thought this theme had a bit of a sorrow band like quality. A sorrow band being a slowish Baroque dance in which the emphasis rather than one, two, three is one, two, three. Anyway, in all of these many ways development unfolds with absolute regularity, and this regularity creates the feeling of inevitability. Listening to the development, you don't feel that beat of it has composed it. You feel that it's simply exists in nature and when the last modulation takes us back to E-flat Major to home, that feels like the most inevitable and natural thing of all. This development is so brief, so unassuming. It is less remarkable for what it does, then for what it does not do. It makes no reference to any of the expositions material beyond its first two bars. It does not even develop those two bars in any meaningful way. It recognizes the gloriousness of that opening theme and therefore that nearly exposing it to that series of modulations is enough to give a great power. I realize I'm using an odd construction here saying, the development is, and the development does rather than making Beethoven the subject the author here. But again, Beethoven's feet here is to get out of the way and allow the music to unfold seemingly of its own glorious accord.
