♫ So, if op. 31 no. 1 is a kind of catalogue or compendium of Beethoven’s different types of humor, it progresses from the crudest to the most subtle. The middle movement, naturally, falls in the middle: as I mentioned in passing, this movement is all about opera, in general, and Italian opera in particular. On the one hand, this is not only a parody of opera, but one that is at times ostentatious and even gaudy: the embellishments are as over-the-top as the oom-pah-pah accompaniments are unapologetically uninteresting. But on the other hand, Beethoven’s love for Italian opera was real – he thought that Cherubini was a great composer, an assessment that has not been shared by history. And so, not only is this a parody that is full of affection, in some ways it’s not a parody at all: it is simply a movement that takes Italian opera as its point of reference, evoking it lovingly and beautifully. While there is comedy contained within it, this slow movement’s ultimate effect is not comic at all: it is tender, moving and at times even lofty. So if this movement has any kind of antecedent among Beethoven’s sonatas, it is the middle movement of op. 10 no. 1. ♫ First of all, because that movement also had an Italianate quality, though in a much less obvious, and much less obviously operatic way. But the other, maybe more significant connection is that op. 10 no. 1 is the rare example of a three movements Beethoven sonata in which the slow middle movement is both the longest and, in many ways, the most significant part of the piece. In the early period, you’d expect that role to be filled by the first movement; by the late period, in pieces like opp. 109 and 110, it’s clearly the last movement. But op. 10 no. 1’s slow movement is definitely its focal point, and the same is true of op. 31 no. 1 – in fact, it’s even more the case in this sonata. This middle movement – interestingly marked Adagio grazioso, by the way – it's by a significant margin the longest movement of the piece, and not coincidentally, it manages to flesh out its ideas more profoundly than the other two; it cuts more deeply. Formally, though, this movement is not similar to op. 10 no. 1. That movement was a pretty strict ABAB – “slow movement form”, if you will. The slow movement of op. 31 no. 1 is a kind of modified rondo, and at over 10 minutes long, each of its main sections – A, B, C and coda – are substantial. Not just substantial, but spacious and leisurely. “Leisurely” is not a word one typically associates with Beethoven: rigorous and economically apply far more frequently. So this slow movement really is somewhat out of character: not self-indulgent, but definitely indulgent.
