♫ So, I think we’ll look at these four sonatas in “ascending” order of scope and interest, which means, we’ll start with the G Major, Op. 49 no. 2. And strangely enough, this is actually the correct order, chronologically: the opus number of 49 is a very misleading one for these two sonatas, as they were written in the mid-1790s, and only got published a decade later. Opus numbers are very often a poor indicator of the sequence in which works were written, as many other factors come into play with publication order – Beethoven often withheld works that didn’t interest him, or that he didn’t think would make as much of an impression. It’s only when someone else catalogues a composer’s works – like Köchel with Mozart, or Deutsch with Schubert – that the chronology tends to be pretty accurate. So, anyway, these op. 49s are early works, although I wouldn’t say that accounts for their modesty. The opus 2 sonatas are written earlier, and they are bursting with ideas and ambition. Again, my best guess is that he wrote these two sonatas at the request of a 'friend' who was more accurately described as a patron who was wanting to learn to play the piano. Beethoven clearly did not labor over them, and didn’t waste any of his precious ideas on them. They are well crafted – I mean, it’s Beethoven, how could they not be? But in the second sonata in particular, there is an almost total lack of distinctive features. Here, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, is the exposition of the first movement. ♫ So, when I say that this is not ambitious music, I don’t just mean that it has a lack of distinctive features. I’m also referring to a certain “boxiness” in how it’s constructed. One idea never dovetails into the next – instead, one thing ends, and another begins. Which gives the piece a somewhat student-ish feel. Let’s just contrast the opening with the openings of Beethoven’s other G Major piano sonatas – and there are many. Op. 31 no. 1, the most ambitious of the group. ♫ Op. 79. ♫ Op. 14, no. 2, which we’ll be looking at later in this lecture. ♫ And now, again, op. 49 no. 2. ♫ Hearing it in that context, it hardly even qualifies as a theme, or even an idea. It’s a declamation. “My name is op. 49 no. 2, and I am in G major.” If we look at the ending of the first theme area, and the beginning of the second theme, it’s more of the same. ♫ The first theme ends, with the dominant all prepared. ♫ Then a rest. Then the second theme. ♫ There is no attempt or pretense of linking the ideas, of having one melt into the next. It’s like Beethoven is just ticking all the sonata form boxes, rather than thinking creatively about how one idea or structural element of the piece prepares the next, which is how he almost always operates. In fact, I think we can leave the first movement there, without digging into the development or recapitulation. Each does what it needs to do: the development refers, vaguely, to the exposition’s materials, and finally cadences back into G Major. The recapitulation does the job of keeping us in G Major, rather than modulating away from it the way the exposition does – but once again, these sections offer the simplest, rather than the most creative, solutions, to these compositional problems. In a funny way, it’s a relief: for once, I don’t feel like a broken record while teaching this course!
