Beethoven’s “Leichte Sonaten” composed in 1795-76 but not released publicly until 1805 are often studied by students.
The Opus 49 “Leichte Sonaten” (light sonatas) are only known today because Kaspar van Beethoven, one of the composer’s brothers, decided on his own to present them for publication in 1805, fully ten years after they had been composed. They are both two-movement works of great charm, popular among students and professionals alike.
Here Wilhelm Kempff performs Beethoven’s Sonata #19, Opus 49 no. 1.
Beethoven and Tragedy: The Coriolan Overture Notes By Fred Haight
We have already talked about Beethoven’s sense of the heroic; and the power and optimism expressed in his Third Symphony, his only opera Fidelio, and the Egmont Overture.
However, an important part of trying to create a positive outcome for society, involves the study of tragedy. This does not refer to the way in which people use the term today, such as a natural disaster, but what happens when the flaws in both a leader and a society result in failure, or worse, betrayal?
Heinrich Joseph von Collin wrote his play, Coriolan, in 1804, the year that Napoleon crowned himself as Emporer. That same year, Beethoven scratched out the dedication of his Third Symphony to Bonaparte, lamenting that now Napoleon would become just another tyrant, and trample on the rights of men. That same year, Schiller premiered his last play, Wilhelm Tell, celebrating the ancient triumph of ordinary Swiss people over the threat of subjugation by the Hapsburg Empire.
In the next year, 1805, the French army occupied Vienna, and many of the city’s leaders left. Von Collin was an opponent of the French occupation, but also seems to have served as some sort of diplomatic liaison. In 1807, Coriolan was performed with a prelude composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. Von Collin was a classicist, familiar not only with Shakespeare, but with the ancient Greeks and Romans. Von Collin’s play is a Germanic rewrite of the ancient story of Gaius Marcius Corialanus, which Shakespeare also wrote about, in his play Coriolanus. We will use Shakespeare’s play Coriolanus, supplemented by the historical writings of Livy and Plutarch, to give a brief account of this tragedy of a flawed military leader and a flawed Roman Republic.
Gaius Marcius Coriolanus was promoted to General after showing great personal courage in defeating the Volscians at the city of Corioli, and was given the honorary name Coriolanus. He made an effort to seek higher political office, but had a deep flaw, in that he DESPISED the ordinary people—the plebeians. That was not just Coriolanus. There was a severe overall divide in the Roman Empire between the plebeians and the patricians. He had to win their approval to be promoted, but he absolutely refused to obey the standard ritual of showing them his war wounds. Worse, he was a speculator, who hoarded grain even while the people starved. He insulted the people, calling them “crows pecking at eagles”. As a result, Coriolanus, the war hero, was exiled from Rome. His wounded ego was so enraged that he went to his old enemies, The Volscians, and offered to lead their army in an attack on Rome. They marched together. The Romans were so freaked out that as Coriolanus and the Volscians approached, they sent Coriolanus’ mother (who had far too much influence on him), and his wife and children to talk him out of it. He relented. Thus, he became seen as a traitor by both the Romans AND the Volscians, who were at the gates of Rome. In Shakespeare’s play, he was murdered. In the Collin, he committed suicide.
If you read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, you see the same problem within the Roman Republic: a huge rift between the people and those in power—the plebeians and the patricians. The patricians had no respect for the plebeians, and the plebeians were fickle, having had no sense of loyalty to the patricians. In 1804, this history would be resonating in people’s minds, as the French Revolution descended into barbarism, with the “sans culottes” decapitating the aristocracy in droves, and as a great general, who promised to liberate the people, became a tyrant.
This performance of the Coriolan Overture is conducted by Wilhelm Furtwangler, recorded in 1943, as Germany and the world experienced an even worse tragedy.
No-one is quite sure what the story is behind Rage Over a Lost Penny. But Beethoven seems to be making fun of those who obsess over the trivial. Listen and tell us what you think!
Beethoven’s piano sonata Op. # 3 in E-flat major, “The Hunt,” was written in 1802.
The third of the Opus 31 sonatas is affectionately known as “The Hunt”, a nickname that describes only the last movement – fast, rollicking, and full of “horn calls”. This is one of Beethoven’s most good-natured works, displaying grace, charm, and wit throughout.
British pianist George Harliono recorded this sonata in the “Snape Maltings” concert hall – a repurposed building originally used for brewing beer and now famous for its superb acoustics. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]
We come to one of the greatest sonatas in the entire repertoire, the Opus 31 #2 in D-minor, nicknamed “The Tempest”. From the unsettling eerieness of the opening movement, to the marvelous , orchestra-like setting of the Adagio second movement, and then the “moto perpetuo” Allegretto at the close, this sonata is riveting throughout. The technical demands of this sonata place are overshadowed by its interpretive challenges, so really great performances are hard to come by. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]
Beethoven’s Opus 31 piano sonatas began a new path for him.
Beethoven composed his trio of Opus 31 piano sonatas in 1801-1802, after he had remarked to his student Carl Czerny that he was dissatisfied with his compositions so far and was setting out on a new path. Each of the sonatas is strikingly different, and none is reminiscent of the courtly style of Haydn or Mozart. The Opus 31 no. 1, Beethoven’s 16th sonata, is described by one commentator as “a running joke on the excesses of Italian opera”.
That spirit is captured perfectly in this performance by Szymon Nehring:
Beethoven, Franz Schubert: musical dialogue and the C-minor series.
No investigation of the C-minor dialogue among composers can be complete without the astonishing C-minor sonata by Franz Schubert, whose birthday we recognized on January 31. Schubert, a native of Vienna, was 15 years Beethoven’s junior, although he died just one year after Beethoven at the age of 31. In fact, he was one of the pallbearers at Beethoven’s funeral. His C-minor sonata, D958, is often performed together with Beethoven’s 32 Variations on an Original Theme, WoO 80 also in C minor, with which it has obvious affinities. Notes by Margaret Scialdone.
Beethoven’s variations are performed by Sookkyung Cho:
We return to Beethoven with two of his best-known sonatas in C-minor: the Pathétique and the Opus 111. Listen for the development of the theme that Bach put forward in his Musical Offering!
Sonata Pathétique (1st movement) played by Dubravka Tomsic:
We continue the investigation of the C-minor dialogue with Bach’s Ricercar à 6 and Mozart’s sonata K.457. When the elderly J.S. Bach visited his son who was court musician for Frederick II, the king presented the elder Bach with a difficult theme, and challenged him to improvise a three-part and then a six-part fugue. Bach created the 3-part fugue on the spot, but declined the 6-part pending further study. Two months later, Bach sent the king the two-volume “Musical Offering” in which the theme is subjected to every possible permutation in the form of ten different canons, two ricercars, and a trio sonata! After studying the Musical Offering, Mozart composed his C-minor sonata and later the Fantasy (which we heard yesterday) in which he demonstrated the principles used in composing the sonata. In the next days, we’ll see how this theme was developed by Beethoven and Schubert. [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]
We hear the Ricercar a 6 played by Daniel Martyn Lewis.
The Mozart sonata is performed here by Micah McLaurin.
Any discussion of musical masters in dialogue must acknowledge the towering figure of Johann Sebastian Bach. The C-minor series we are about to explore had as its genesis Bach’s Musical Offering – a set of pieces based on a theme proposed to him in 1747 by Frederick II, King of Prussia. Today we will hear the three-voice “Ricercar” from Bach’s Musical Offering, followed by Mozart’s Fantasy K.475, composed as a prelude to his Sonata K.457 (we will visit the Sonata tomorrow). [Notes by Margaret Scialdone.]
Here, Bach’s “Ricercar à 3” is beautifully performed by Ji-Hyang Gwak:
And now listen to Mozart’s treatment of the theme in the Fantasy K.475, performed here by Mitsuko Uchida:
