Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 01/01/2008, uploaded on 01/31/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major      Ludwig van Beethoven

                The Piano Sonata No. 13, published as the first sonata under opus 27, is the often overlooked sibling of the more popular Moonlight sonata. Completed in the same year as the Moonlight, both sonatas share the same subtitle "Quasi una fantasia," meaning "like a fantasy." The phrase is an indicator of the obvious departures that both pieces make from the typical pattern of a Classical sonata. Indeed, these two sonatas adhere less to the formal expectancies of the sonata pattern than the late piano sonatas.

                The four movements are arranged in a slow-fast-slow-fast order which, incidentally, is the pattern of the old Baroque sonata da chiesa (Church sonata). Whether this was Beethoven's intention to mimic this obsolete pattern is difficult to know, but it is very probable that he would have been familiar with the form seeing that his immediate predecessors, Mozart and Haydn, both utilized it.

                The first movement abandons the typical sonata form. Instead, it is structured as a ternary beginning in an andante tempo with a contrasting middle section in C major. The movements proceed without any interruption between them, a device that Beethoven used frequently. The second movement, also in a ternary form, has the character of a scherzo and trio. However, the contrast between the scherzo and trio sections is not as pronounced as expected. In the recapitulation of the first section, Beethoven presents an interesting variation by delaying the right hand's figures by an eighth note.

                The third movement, another slow movement though this time in an adagio tempo, serves as nothing more than an introduction to the finale. Not even the simplest forms can be used to describe this brief movement. It consists essentially of a single melody, twenty-four bars in length. While this melody does process three distinctive musical sentences creating a miniature A-B-A' design, it does not fulfill even the basic requirements of the simplest ternary form. A three measure codetta closes the movement on a half cadence in E-flat major and leads into the finale.

                The finale is a jubilant sonata-rondo. It begins with a rumble, both melody and countermelody appearing in the low register of the piano, that sounds like bubbling-over excitement. This is then repeated with the melody in the treble and the rondo's theme is given in full. The melodic and rhythmic elements of this tune are then developed throughout the movement. Unusually, Beethoven returns to the Adagio theme of the previous movement, quoting its first eight bars in the tonic key of E-flat major. This no doubt looks forward to the return of the scherzo near the end of the last movement of the Fifth Symphony. The movement then closes in a presto tempo and a slightly varied form of the rondo tune.

Joseph DuBose