[MUSIC] From that point on, things get very, very strange. The little recitative had roots in the form of the Tempest Sonata. What follows has no precedent. The recitative, though short, was expansive. With its appogiaturas and neighbor tones and fermatas. The whole thing is essentially just ornamenting two chords. [MUSIC] On the heels of this comes in a faster tempo, a three note transition which suddenly is as harmonically bold and active as the rest of the T was suspended. [MUSIC] And with that, not for the first, but the second time in this sonata, we have traveled all the way from A flat, minor in this case, to E major. [MUSIC] E major. [SOUND] Once again, the key of Opus 109. If one reference to that key in the context of far-off A flat could possibly be considered coincidental two just cannot. Here, just as the emotional temperature of the piece is rising, Beethoven calls upon Opus 109. In some mysterious way, it is embedded into this Sonata, a part of it's genetic makeup. This passage, this visitation of E major in 109 is astonishing for other reasons as well. Over a 5, 7 chord, [SOUND] Beethoven repeats the top note not 2, not 5 but 14 times. [MUSIC] That A, it starts quietly, grows in almost manic way and then it finally dissipates again without having gone anywhere. Beethoven is obsessive by nature, but this is a manifestation of his obsessiveness as extreme as any I can think of. And I haven't even gotten to the most obsessive. And most peculiar aspect of these A's yet. As you may have noticed, each one of the A's had a sort of echo or an after resonance, as I once heard someone call it. That is on account of the most unusual notation and fingering that Beethoven uses for this passage. Each of those 14 A's is written not as a single note but as 2 with a tie holding them together. And, lest the pianist missed the point that there is some significant in this notation. Beethoven asked that the first part of the note be played with the fourth finger. The second part with the third. [SOUND] There is a whole debate among pianists about whether this note should be rearticulated as normally a tie isn't. But for me, Beethoven's fingering leaves little room for doubt on the question. Beethoven doesn't provide fingerings often, and when he does, they are always there for musical, not practical reasons. This is no exception. The fingering is Beethoven's way of requesting a rearticulation of the note. It's not a tie, but rather something in between a slur and a tie. We pianists often think resignedly, that each note is dead, inert, after we're done depressing the key. This finger again is a reminder that we have to think of the note as living and evolving until the very end. The tie and that fingering are Beethoven's ways of saying that the note has a pulsation inside it. Now, I know this is a pretty theoretical and highfalutin sounding idea. And I wouldn't dwell on it if it wasn't an idea that Beethoven was to come back to. In the Grosse Fuge string quartet, Opus 133. The Fuge subject there is in quarter notes. Except it's not. Each quarter is notated as two eighth notes with a tie. [SOUND] This is much more achievable on a string instrument where one can change the speed and the pressure of the bow within a note. On the piano, it's far more difficult. But Beethoven is really making the same request in both cases. That the notes have a kind of vibration at the midway point. So having fixated on that chord, [SOUND] in such a remarkable way, as soon as Beethoven actually lands in the E major, he leaves it. The reference to 109 is like a memory shard. It takes Beethoven just a few notes to get back to A flat minor, to music of devastation, and once more, to the world of recitative. [MUSIC] This is very reminiscent of one of the only examples of instrumental recitative before Beethoven that I can think of. The second movement of Mozart's Concerto K 271. [MUSIC] But whereas the Mozart has the proper orchestral two-note cadence. [MUSIC] Beethoven resolves his recitative's uncertainty in a more gradual and, to my ear anyway, more devastating way. He takes the E flat that the recitative ended with. [MUSIC] The fifth scale degree of A flat minor. And then he adds the C flat, the third, establishing the minor, and then finally the A flat, giving the chord a root and with it a terrible certainty. [MUSIC] This terrible certainty brings us finally to the music the third movement has been pointing to, looking for, from the beginning. Once again, Beethoven marks it in German and Italian. [FOREIGN] plaintiff song. And that it is. [MUSIC] And what is the source material of this devastating music? The first movement of Opus 109. [MUSIC] The tempo and rhythm might be different. But the notes themselves are identical, and in the same key, to boot. The presence of A flat minor, though spelled G sharp minor, just a technical detail. In the middle of Opus 109 was as surprising as these appearances of E major in Opus 110. So that is further evidence that this shared material is no coincidence. That passage, beautiful as it was, came and went in passing in Opus 109. Here, it becomes the basis of the that is the beating, bleeding heart of the work.
