Programme summary

Sonata in A major Op. 101 (1816) Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

After the fall of Napoleon, Beethoven’s sense of nationality manifested itself when he abandoned traditional Italian musical terminology, publishing works for ‘Hammerklavier’, a permanently associated with the sonata in B flat, Op. 106. In the A major sonata Op. 101, also designed for ‘Hammerklavier’, he gave the directions for tempo and expression in German.

Beethoven’s career as a keyboard-player required him to play concertos and improvise, but sonatas were not played in public until later pianists (notably Liszt) took them up as concert items. Yet it is hard to imagine the amateurs who formed the main market for sheet music tackling these ‘Hammerklavier’ sonatas, the first of Beethoven’s ‘late’ sonatas. Increasing deafness, and a generous pension from Archduke Rudolph and others, had freed Beethoven from normal economic restraints and given him carte blanche to ignore the market and explore musical ideas as far as his imagination would take him, and the instrument allow. When he later declared the piano to be an unsatisfactory instrument, he was not, of course, condemning the modern instrument – framed in metal and thus allowing higher string tension. But Beethoven always composed to the limits of what for him was a modern instrument, and Op. 101 contains a low note, not previously available, and signalled by Beethoven as ‘contra E’.

The normal four movements (fast, slow, scherzo, finale) were retained in sonatas by younger contemporaries such as Hummel and Schubert, but ignored by middle and late Beethoven (except in Op. 106). His aim seemed to be a work in which elements of contrast are both enhanced and integrated into a larger whole; his early Bach studies bear fruit in inventive, unorthodox counterpoint. Op. 101 has three main sections, but the third includes a short slow movement and a reprise of the opening, before the weighty finale.

I. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung (quite lively and with intimate sensibility). For a sonata first movement, exceptionally short and unusually gentle, almost without internal contrast: a flowing pastoral, homophonic, homogeneous; balanced phrases subtly avoid harmonic closure until the end.

II. Lebhaft, Marschmässig (lively, like a March). An explosive start marks an extreme contrast: crisp rhythms, eccentric dissonances, abrupt changes of harmonic perspective, counterpoint, hand-crossing towards the climax. A gentler central section in strict imitation (canon) merges into a transition for the repeat of the March.

III. Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll (slow, with yearning), ‘Mit einer Saite’ (one string, the ‘soft pedal’). A movement of twenty bars, the quintessence of Beethoven’s melancholy, founded in isolation and loneliness. A cadenza leads to Zeitmass der ersten Stückes (tempo of the first movement): the poet-musician pulls himself together, recovering his pastoral point of departure; a brisk trill sets up the powerful full-length sonata-form Finale.

Geschwinde, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit (Fast, but not excessively, and with resolution). The main idea is a two-note hammer-blow with a rushing sequel. A gentler contrasting theme soon yields to further games with the opening idea; the middle section is a full-blooded fugue, starting softly and building to a mighty clatter (with pedal on the ‘Contra E’), to recapitulate, continue varying, and finally, in the coda, turn the main idea into something laconic, almost a wink, showing (a lesson the Romantic generation never absorbed) that the sublime does not exclude humour.


Summary by Emeritus Professor Julian Rushton