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BEETHOVEN'S

PIANOFORTE SONATAS

ig ran

Fn>ni an engraving by
Masius Hojel after the (Inuring hy Louis I^rtronne
tteethoren.

(1814)

BEETHOVEN'S
PIANOFORTE SONATAS
A

Guide for Students

&

Amateurs

by

EDWIN FISCHER
Translated by

STANLEY GODMAN
with the collaboration of

PAUL HAMBURGER

FABER AND FABER

24 Russell Square

London

First published in

mcmlix
Faber
and
Faber
Limited
by
24 Russell Square, London, W. C. i
Printed in Great Britain

by

Western Printing Services Limited, Bristol

All rights reserved

This edition

Faber and Faber Limited

1959

Originally published

by INSEL-VERLAG,
under
the title:
WIESBADEN,
Ludwig van Beethovens Klaviersonaten

TO

THE MEMORY
OF

MY MOTHER

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
FIRST LECTURE

page 13
15

Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas

The 3 Sonatas, Op. 2,

Sonata in F minor, Op.
Sonata in ^4 major, Op.
Sonata in C major, Op.

No.
2,, No.

2,,

2,,

19
19

i
2,

2,2,

JVo. 5

125

SECOND LECTURE

2.Q

Beethoven's Piano Playing

Sonata in Eflat rnctjor, Op. f
Sonata in C minor, Op. 10, No. i
Sonata in F major, Op. io No. 2,
Sonata in
major Op. 10, No. 5

53
55
58
39

THIRD LECTURE

On

Practising

Sonate pathetique in C minor, Op. 13

Sonata in E major. Op. 14, No. i
Sonata in G major, Op. 14, No. 2,
Sonata in B jflat major, Op. 2,2,

46
48
50
51

FOURTH LECTURE
Beethoven's Personality
Sonata in ^4 flat major, Op. ^6
Sonata in E flat major, Op. 2,7, No. i
Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 2,7, No.
Sonata in
major, Op. 28

54
58
60
2,

62,

64

CONTENTS
FIFTH LECTURE

P&g& 67

Interpreters

The 3 Sonatas Op. 31

-,

Sonata in G major, Op.

Sonata in
minor. Op.
Sonata in Ejflat major.
The Sonatas, Op. 49
Sonata i?i G minor, Op.
Sonata in G major, Op.
Sonata in C major, Op.

51, TVb. i
31, TVb. a
Op. 31, TVb. 3

49,
49,

No.
No.

55

i
<z

69
70
72
75
77
78
78
79

SIXTH LECTURE

83

Beethoven's Instruments
Sonata in F major, Op. 54
Sonata in F minor, Op. 57
Sonata in F sharp major, Op. 78
Sonatina in G major, Op. 79
Sonata in Eflat major, Op. 8iA

84
85
89
90
90

SEVENTH LECTURE
Tempo and Metronome

93

Sonata in E minor, Op. 90

Sonata in ^4 7najor, Op. 101

95
96

EIGHTH LECTURE

1OO

Beethoven's Circle of Friends

Sonata in Bflat major, Op. 106
Sonata in E major, Op. 109

103
109

NINTH LECTURE

112,

Beethoven Biographies
Sonata in ^4 flat major, Op* 110
Sonata in C minor, Op. 1 1 1

10

1*5
117

ILLUSTRATIONS
Ludwig van Beethoven. From an engraving by
Blasius

Hofel

after

the

drawing by Louis

Letronne (1814)

frontispiece

The beginning

of the third movement of the

Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2, in Beethoven's hand

writing

facing page 64

Beethoven's Broadwood Grand Piano

The opening of the Sonata, Op. 111, in Beet

hoven's handwriting

^Acknowledgment is made to the Insel-J^erlag

for supplying these illustrations ivhich
appeared in their edition of this book.

II

84

112

INTRODUCTION
In studying Beethoven's piano sonatas one encounters
difficulties, questions and problems the solution of which
constitutes part of the entire artistic and human education
of a musician.

The range

of the collection compels us to occupy our

selves with matters of technique, form, harmony and

textual criticism; but the main requirement is an under

standing of the artistic content. A careful study of these

works will transform us, for Beethoven will become our

teacher and lead us to develop our own personalities and
characters.

With this

mind

studied the sonatas with my pupils

in 1945 and the present volume is based on the notes I
used in that course. The analysis of each group of sonatas
is preceded by an introduction on some general theme.
These informal talks make no claim to scholarly com
pleteness or significance. They are thoroughly personal,
and if they serve as a reminder of the beautiful summer
in

in

which they originated

I shall be content.

FIRST LECTURE

Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas

Ludwig van Beethoven's work has the

quality of true

greatness. What worlds he traversed from his simple be

ginnings to the sublimation that he achieved at the close
struggle! None of us could bear the strain of
have
the tensions that his spirit was able to endure.
the result of these struggles before us and we can only

of his

life's

We

say:

The sound

is

a reflection of the

life.

His piano works

52 sonatas, 6 concertos, i tripleconcerto, numerous sets of variations, works for piano and
strings, piano and woodwind, fantasias and miscellaneous

major part of his life's work.

Proceeding, to begin with, from Johann Christian and
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, he touches the world of
Mozart, absorbs a good measure of Haydn and Clementi,
reaches a culminating point in Opp. 55 and 57, and then
moves increasingly into transcendental spheres. On one
in the 33 Variations
occasion he reveals the future to us
on a Waltz by Diabelli, which constitute a summing-up
and an anticipation of the whole development of music
from Handel to our own time.
small pieces

constitute a

in his beginnings, sheer delight in the resources of

the piano predominates, later on the interest in structure
If,

and symphonic form becomes more and more evideitt.

With Opp. 27 and 31 a more romantic, 'pianistic', trend
emerges once more, bringing with it a freer treatment of
form. These sonatas in fantasia style also introduce the
greatest advances in the harmonic sphere. Thereafter

FIRST LECTURE
all manner of forms,
orchestral, variation,
aid him in the portrayal of his
visions;

Beethoven uses
even fugue, to
we have now those magnificent contests between Beet
hoven's personality and the world, those demonstrations
of his creative will. This phase, in turn, is followed
by an
urge to write more and more simply. In the childlike
themes which he uses in Opp. 109, no and in he now
achieves the ideal of symbolizing the
highest in terms of
the greatest simplicity. "What was, at the outset, the ex
pression of a personal faith, is transformed into an expres
sion of eternal, universal truth. His return from orchestral
writing to the string quartet

is

a token of this
develop

ment.
This journey from the virtuoso, through the creator,
to the seer and mystic has been divided into three
periods.
Liszt called them: the adolescent the
man; the god. His
;

piano style, in its technical aspect, also passes through

these phases, and it would be a
rewarding task in itself to
study these transformations; to demonstrate how rococo
figuration devolves into "noble, classical lines; how the
range of the writing gradually extends over the whole

how the accompanimental patterns

expand, be
coming increasingly individual and instinct with expres
keyboard;

sion; how pedalling becomes more differentiated; until in

the final works the form, purged of all purely
pianistic
elements, becomes a mirror of ultimate spiritual insights.
At this point I would like to refer briefly to Beethoven's

No doubt

was extremely inhibiting in his

and made him suspicious and mis
trustful. No doubt there -were moments when one would
have been glad for him to hkve been able to enjoy the full
impact of sound. Yet here if anywhere is evidence that
the spirit hastens on in advance of the world of matter. It
16
deafness.

it

intercourse with people

BEETHOVEN'S PIANOFORTE SONATAS

not true that Beethoven's final works do not sound well.
There could be no better way of -writing down what he
is

intended to express. One realizes that, the moment one

attempts to make the corrections made possible by the
extension of the modern keyboard. Beethoven intended
these sounds, these wide positions, and he heard every
thing in his mind exactly as it sounds to us with our
undiminished hearing.
What is it that distinguishes Beethoven's work from
other styles, for instance that of the Romantic school? It
is the symphonic element, the
organic growth of his
forms. There is, with him, no mere juxtaposition of beau
tiful musical ideas, nor a spinning-out of atmospheric
moods. His works are built, as it were, stone upon stone
each based on the one below and bearing the weight of
the one above. Every bar, every section acquires its full
meaning only in relation to the whole work. Such is the
work's architecture that every element has full signifi
cance only at, and by virtue of, the place where it occurs.
There is no unnecessary repetition, no empty rhetoric.
It is^this relatipnship of every note to the whole, this
ijmer lpgic> that gives such delight and such strength and
comfort, above all to the masculine spirits among us.
Beethoven appeals to the listener's sense of logical con
*

struction.

'

He achieves his consistency,

his sureness of

How much

aim by a supreme

his organic growth,

intellectual discipline.

he eliminated, abbreviated, simplified and

refined! Strictly speaking, here is proof of his moral
stamina. This struggle with his daemon, this repudiation
of cheap effects, this restraint and renunciation and con
trol of his instincts is a revelation of his true moral great
ness.

There
B

is,

however, more in Beethoven than reason and

77

FIRST LECTURE
unconscious also plays its part. Who can rival
power of evoking, with a few chords, high solemnity
and a sense of religious awe? He translates fundamental
human emotions into sound, and it is best to let the how

will.

The

his

and

why remain

Now

his secret.

word about performance.

always be a
problem so long as the player's own personality is not at
one with Beethoven's. It is unlikely, however, that the
average pianist will ever be able to identify himself com
pletely with the immortal master, that is to say, attain
the same heights of sublimity. It is also impossible to enter
fully into Beethoven's every emotional experience. Since
a

It will

only possible to expound and communicate to othez^s

what one has experienced oneself, albeit intuitively, Beet
hoven's work requires for its adequate performance a full

it is

man, a life of experience.

There are two dangerous paths open

to the interpreter:
one consists of using Beethoven's language to express his
own passions and the other is for the player simply to

reproduce slavishly the notes and directions of the score.

It is necessary to steer between this Scylla and Charybdis,
avoiding on the one hand an extravagant portrayal of
oneself through the music, and on the other, the dangers
of an excess of terrified respect for the letter' of the
*

music.

The most helpful counsel one can give is this: 'Love

him and his work, and you will inevitably become his
servant and interpreter and yet remain yourself. Your
energy, your warmth and your love will kindle his
energy, his spirit and his love in the hearts of
make them shine therein.'

18

men and

SONATA IN

MINOR, OP.

The Three

a,

Sonatas., Op.

NO.

These three sonatas were composed in 1795, in Beet

hoven's twenty-fifth year. They 'were certainly preceded
by other works besides those dedicated to the Elector
Maximilian Frederick and composed when Beethoven was
twelve years old, for such mastery of form as is found in
Op. 2 is not achieved by a sudden bolt from the blue. In
connexion "with the dedication to Joseph Haydn there is
a story that Haydn would have liked Beethoven to have
had it engraved as follows: 'Dedicated to his teacher
Joseph Haydn by his pupil Ludwig van Beethoven but
Beethoven refused to accept the suggestion and preferred
to leave it at: Dedicated to Joseph Haydn.'
'

Sonata

in

F minor,

Op. 2, No.

This work is often called the 'little Appassionata% probably

because it has the same key as Op. 57 and because the
-with their uninterrupted figuration and
excitement, resemble each other. The form of the open
ing movement has an exemplary conciseness. Beethoven

last

movements,

copied the

119) from Mozart's little

G minor symphony (K. 119). The subject also has an
affinity with the last movement of Mozart's great G
first

subject (bars

minor symphony.

The second

in the relative major

key and approximates an inversion of the first subject.
The coda is marked con espressione.

In

subject (bars

this sonata

we

2040)

is

already find two outstanding charac-

FIRST LECTURE
Beethoven's style: the sforzandos and the sud
pianissirnos. The sforzandos must always be adjusted
to the prevailing volume and to the character of the work
as a whole. It is wrong to fire off the same kind of sforzando in a gentle Andante movement as one would in a
heroic work; Beethoven is said, when playing himself to
have often emphasized the sforzandos by a slight rhyth
mic delay. The sf-sign frequently refers not to the whole

teristics of

den

chord but only to one note, usually a dissonance or a

sustained bass-note.

The development is already concentrated, in the typical

Beethoven manner. The recapitulation (bars 109 ff.) intro
duces the second subject in the main key of F minor.
The actual coda is extended by five bars closing the terse
movement with sforzandos.
The average player is faced with two difficulties at this
the simultaneous
stage: first, the tied notes against
staccato of the other part in the brief sequel to the main
theme (bars 1 1 ff.) and secondly, the final chords. Here the
player

must

realize that there are

two

possible

ways of

attacking the chords: either by playing them into the

keys and upwards, or away from the keys and outwards.
The former corresponds to the violinist's upbow, the

downbow. Quite distinct effects can be ob

tained by the use of these two kinds of movement and
latter to his

they alone can give

plasticity to certain phrases.

movement

found
in a piano-quartet dating from the year 1785, when Beet
hoven was fifteen; only the trio-like D minor section is
missing there. It is instructive to see how, after an inter
val of ten years, Beethoven improved and enriched the
melody. There is a modest simplicity about this movement
with its reminiscences of C. P. E. Bach and Mozart. The
20

The

first

version of the second

is

to be

SONATA IN
limpid colour of

its

MINOR, OP.

NO.

a,

F major

fine sense of phrasing,

requires round fingers and a

and fluency in the execution of the

exquisite fioriture.
The third movement

a genuine minuet, to be played

quietly and in the style of a dance. The cerulean' Trio
needs a perfect legato. Riemann has demonstrated that
is

have great expressive power but one has to feel

them, to know whether they are breathing in or out
whether they signify the end or whether they are the
empty space between two columns surmounted by the
rests

arch of a melody. Our attention is usually directed far

more towards the notes than the silence but the one
conditions the other, and the clear and precise termina
tion of a chord is just as important as its beginning.
The prestissimo fourth movement is a wild nocturnal
piece full of sharp contrasts. It appears to me to be
in sonata form, the development beginning with a great

which must be played with the same

fills the whole movement.

cantilena

ment as
The movement

is

disproportionately

difficult,

excite

the

left-

figure at the beginning making demands which we

do not encounter again until Chopin's Revolutionary ?

hand

Study.

The important thing

fingering. I play:

is

to discover the correct

supple wrist is important, and also perfect legato

playing of the octaves. The sterna thunders unceasingly
and demoniacally through this sombre portrait of the
soul.

21

FIRST LECTURE

Sonata

in

major, Op.

2,

No. 2

This sonata, having the air of a bright spring day, pro

vides a great contrast to No. i and No. 3 of this opus.
The looseness of the texture, which is evident in the
many rests, the exuberance and cheerfulness of the piece
show that Beethoven was capable of happiness as well as
sorrow. In particular, the Scherzo and the last movement
have a charm which should be evoked by a corresponding
lightness and grace in the performance, as well as by the
ease of the player's attitude. For we listen with our eyes
as well as our ears, and the artist must not convey the
slightest hint of difficulty or exertion in the performance
of this work.
The construction of the first movement is normal the
second subject begins in the dominant minor; the de
velopment modulates through some flat keys to C major
and F major and hangs in the air on the dominant (bar
225) before the recapitulation enters.
In view of the sudden change of key from A major to C
major, it is curious that Beethoven wanted the second
section repeated as well. Normally, this repeat is not
$

played.

Now to the general question of repeats. The repeats in

Beethoven's sonatas are due for the most part to an old
method of writing which derived from the dance suites
where the repeats were, if necessary, performed several
times over to suit the dancers. Even in Haydn and Mozart
there is often no psychological reason for a repeat. It is not
1

This repetition,
spurious. P.H.

found in some

22

editions,

has

been proved

SONATA IN A MAJOR,
until

we come

to

OP.

2,

NO.

Beethoven that the repeats appear to

an emotional need. Some of the expositions are so

brief in comparison with the development that a better
balance is obtained by a repeat. In public performances
fulfil

the player must decide for himself where a

repeat is
and
it
where
would
be
psychologically necessary
merely
pedantic. One need not subscribe to the naivety of one of

my teachers who said to me:

If

it

went

all right,

Fischer,

then thank God", and go on.'

There are, however, other considerations to be borne in
mind, not necessarily of a purely artistic nature. Some
times external circumstances such as the state of the
piano or the tiredness of the player may be a reason for
leaving out a repeat. In certain programmes, however,
the execution of repeats may further the general
impres
sion. The repeats in Opp. 2, 7, 10, 14 and 2-2
may well be
omitted, whereas in the later sonatas there is sometimes
an obvious psychological case for a repeat, for instance in
Op. 106 where the omission of the repeat would rob us of
the beautiful lead-back. "What composers themselves
sometimes think about repeats is evident from a remark

which Brahms made

to a young musician who was sur

that
in
a
prised
performance conducted by the composer
himself the exposition of the first movement of the

Second Symphony was not repeated. 'Earlier on,' Brahms

'when the work was new to audiences, the
repeat was necessary nowadays it is so well known that I
can proceed without it.'
To return to our sonata: it should be noticed that at the
start of the recapitulation Beethoven did not
put a dot on.
told him,

the crotchet after the demisemiquavers, in the second bar.

The holding of this note gives the figure a different
character from what it had at the beginning of the

2)

FIRST LECTURE
movement:

it

becomes an answer. This interpretation

is

confirmed in the development. 1 The turns of the second

subject should be played on B, C and D not C sharp and
D sharp, since these notes would weaken the subsequent
octaves. The fingering which Beethoven prescribes for
the semiquaver triplets shows that he had an unusually
wide stretch, 2 and also that the figure should be played
?

melodically, not in a virtuoso style. Many people, how

ever, will find this fingering impossible.
The Largo appassionato is a movement that invites

orchestration

but the trombone-like lines in the right

pizzicati of the left can also be

hand and the double-bass

reproduced on the piano. The movement is in compound

binary form, with two episodes and a coda. A wellmaintained rhythm will give the movement its inherent
solemnity.
The third

movement, which

entitled

is

Scherzo:

no longer a dance pure and simple, but a

Scherzo of the type that Beethoven later developed in the
symphonies. The basic volume of the Trio is piano, and it
should be played perfectly legato.

Allegretto*) is

The

last

movement

is

a pure

Rondo A B
:

ACAB A

Coda. After the fourth appearance of the rondo theme,

there follows in place of a new idea (D) a combination of
A, B and C in my opinion, the real coda only begins
with the fifth reappearance of the rondo theme. The
movement has an enchanting grace and contains charm
ing effects such as the leap from E to G sharp at the
beginning, the legato slur of which is easier to execute
optically than in reality. Pedalling will help the slur, as

A in

The

An alternative suggestion, made by Schenker

dot on the

keys of old pianos

made

bar 2

is

spurious. P.H,

this fingering feasible.

24

is

that the narrower

P.H.

SONATA IN A MAJOR, OP. 2, NO. *

well as the rolling A major scale in
demisemiquavers
the

minore

section,

which

latter

introduces

after

novel

staccato effect.

Concerning the use of the pedal it is well to remember

that it should be used much more
cautiously and sparingly
in the lower registers than the
higher. In the highest
registers, the piano has no dampers at all, owing to the
short sustaining power of those notes.
The Mozartian spirit that hovers over this movement
also manifests itself in the
many rests and the lifted notes
of the left hand. In a crotchet
passage Mozart usually
in
the
orchestral manner, a quaver note and a
wrote,
rest
in
the
quaver
bass-part where later on Beethoven and

Brahms scored full crotchets. These rests, which should be

given their

full due,

Sonata
The Sonata No.
Appassionata',

Waldstein'.
brilliance.

Its

in

bring light and

air into

2,

major, Op.

F minor,
and we might
i,

in

character

is

No.

the texture.

has been called the

call this one the

one of

little
'

little

artistic virtuosity

and

however, about the way it

doubt it displays the young

Opinions differ,
should be performed. No
Beethoven's delight in his own unusual pianistic skill but
it would be
wrong to exaggerate the tempi and regard
virtuosity as the sole end of the work. After all, the music
is the
body and the technique merely the clothing.
The thematic material of the first movement Allegro
con brio comes from a Piano Quartet in C major which
Beethoven wrote when he was fifteen. The movement
really contains five ideas of which the third and fourth
may be considered as forming the second subject. The

FIRST LECTURE

third begins in
minor and the fourth is in G major,
the obligatory dominant. The fingering of the opening
thirds

is:

The closing theme of the first part raises a difficulty,

the rhythmically precise rendering of the group
:

Here, the two semiquavers are often abbreviated into

mere grace-notes of the preceding trill. One often hears
the same mistake in the finale of the G major Concerto,

The development

begins with this closing-theme,

modulates boldly into D major, and introduces a stretto
on the two final crotchets of the opening motif. An old
and experienced musician thought that the sforzandos
before the recapitulation (bars 155 ff.) really pertain to
the second quaver.

the accent on the

quaver being self-evident, and it

characteristic
of
Beethoven to strengthen weak
being
units of the bar. However, one could also maintain that
first

the sfs, as printed, signify a strengthening of the weak

second and fourth beats 5 for without them one
might
easily accent the first and third. Though our modern

26

SONATA IN

MAJOR, OP.

2,

NO.

pianos would enable us to double the octaves at the end

of the first and second section we should refrain from

doing

so, since

octave-doubling often makes for a rough,

grumbling tone.

The

coda, introduced

by a cadenza which begins in

major, brings the movement to a brilliant finish. The

fortissimo chords 9 to 7 bars from the end should be
divided for the greater comfort of small hands.
The second movement Adagio requires a skilful
touch. It is not easy to shape the movement into an entity
owing to the difference in character of its three subjects.
The Form is A B C A B C A, the episodes B and C being
extended the first time. The tempo is best determined by
the expressive rendering of the sighing, grief-laden third
subject in which the left hand should relaxedly cross over
the right. Be careful to take the left hand off in the ninth
bar of the main subject while the right hand sustains the
octave. The fingering for the transition in bar 10 is:
flat

Beethoven often referred to a dualism a masculine

and feminine principle in his sonatas, and the contrast
is, I think, especially evident here. I would definitely
regard subjects i and 5 as feminine and the subject in the
minor mode as masculine. It is psychologically very in
comparable to a reconciliation that at the
end the man (left hand) takes over the feminine subject,

teresting

FIRST LECTURE
thus yielding

were to the lady's wishes

in the minor section.

as it

several refusals

after his

The main section of the Scherzo is very orchestral in

style. The upbeat must not be played as a triplet! The
and piano must be played without transitional
crescendos. It is possible that Beethoven never noticed
that bars 5 to 7 form the bass of the Trio. Many such dis
coveries, by commentators of thematic relationships or of
forte

the true intentions of the composer, remind me of the

modern composer who after reading an analysis of his
work said: 'I had the feeling- that I was dead and was
being shown a list of the chemical elements that had been
discovered in my dead body. It is all quite new to me.'
The tempo of the main part of the Scherzo should be
determined by the pace at which the Trio can be taken.

movement is a virtuoso piece, full of gloriously

The tempo is Allegro assaz, not Presto
the form is that of a Rondo. The episodes contrast hap
pily with one another; the F major section, with, its
difficult legato octaves and chords, is particularly charm
ing. In the first episode the bass-line should be empha
sized. The coda shoxild be kept piano until the first
fortissimo in bar 279, The difficult skips in bars 87 ff.
The

last

ebullient music.

should be mastered by a clear mental awareness of the

distances involved. The difficulties of the first passage of
semiquavers, like the lightly bouncing first inversions of
the beginning, can be overcome only by keeping the hand
relaxed, yet still giving its full value to every note quite
in other words, by aiming at that balance
deliberately
between tension and relaxation wherein lies the solution
of most of

life's difficulties.

SECOND LECTURE
Beethoven'*s Piano Playing
should like to say a few words about Beethoven's piano
playing by way of introduction to the present lecture.
I once remarked that players of a particular constitution
are best suited for the performance of the works of com
posers with a similar constitution. For example, thick-set
players with thick fleshy hands are predestined for the
I

interpretation of works by composers of similar frame,

whilst tall, long-fingered, sinewy players are likewise the
best interpreters of the works of similarly constituted

composers.
If we take a look at some representative pianists from
this point of view we shall find this view substantiated on
the whole. Thus the Beethoven and Brahms players
Rubinstein and d' Albert were thick-set types whereas
Liszt and Cortot were Chopin and Liszt players par
excellence. Sometimes the resemblance between inter
preter and composer may even go so far as a similarity of
features and of the whole appearance. Fundamentally,
however, it is all a matter of touch. Composers with soft,
thick'
flabby hands and thick finger-pads compose
music. Max Reger is an example of this type. There was
*

something of the mollusc about his whole nature; his

touch was unbelievably soft and his pianissimo inimitable.
Composers compose, as it were, for themselves. They un
consciously exploit their own qualities and need kindred
natures to interpret their work. The wide spacing of a
Henselt, the piano-technique of a Liszt

29

came from long-

SECOND LECTURE
fingered hands capable of wide stretches. It -was not for
nothing that Busoni and Sauer were great interpreters of
Liszt.

The

parallel cases of Liszt

and Paganini

may

also

be instanced.
Beethoven belonged more to the thick-set type and his
work requires a broad., full, singing tone. But he was not
only a 'broad' type. Brahms was that far more than Beet
hoven. When one examines the plaster cast of Beethoven's
hand in the Beethoven House in Bonn one is amazed at
the tapering fingers, and the later assertion that his
finger-tips were abnormally wide is contradicted by this
evidence. Czerny said of his playing: It was marked by
enormous strength, character, incredible bravura and
fluency. No one surpassed him in the speed of his scales,

double shakes and leaps. His attitude while playing was

perfectly calm, noble and beautiful. He made not the

grimace $ his fingers were strong and their tips

flattened by much playing. He demanded the kind of
legato playing of which he himself was the unsurpassed
master.' His contemporaries noticed the last-named
slightest

quality especially in his playing of the first inversions in

the C major Concerto, Op. 15.
In the manuscript of Op. 109, Beethoven marked in
ligoto and legato repeatedly in red pencil (probably for a
friend). The pianos of his time were not strong enough
for his gigantic playing. Referring to the chord-passage
in the first movement of Op. 51, No, 2 he said: 'The

piano must break.'

Someone who

visited the Countess Malfatti in

her old
her
heard
with
enthusiasm
about
his
speak
age
great
playing, but in general, there seems to have been little
appreciation of his work as a composer in that circle.
Many of his fingerings show that he was well aware of

jo

BEETHOVEN'S PIANO PLAYING

the

difficulties;

he

especially for the

also
*

made use

tremolo'

of alternating fingers,

effect,

whereby the second

note is repeated softly. I have in mind a passage in the

Scherzo of the Cello Sonata, Op. 69, and the Adagio of
Op. no:

His sforzandos are particularly significant. With them,

he seems to have put something of his essential personality

he often uses them to stress weak beats

as though he wished to counteract the exaggerated
lightening of weak beats that results from academically
into his playing;

accenting the so-called strong beats. Some of the sforzan

dos in passages for both hands also suggest that he was
trying to facilitate their synchronization. See, for example,
Op. in, bars 26 ff.
:

The

subiti piani after a crescendo are a further

teristic feature. Some of the crescendos which

charac

he pre
scribed on sustained notes are unplayable but the mental
illusion

is

important.
greatest inventory of his pianistic art is found in
the Diabelli Variations which point to the future more
than any other work. He greatly promoted the art of

The

SECOND LECTURE
new effects. Let me quote a
pedalling, obtaining quite
examples. In the Trio of the second movement of Op.

few

no

etc.

etc.

the pedal notes must continue to sound until the entry

of the new harmony. This will best be achieved by halfthe rhythm I use the
pedalling. As a means of enlivening
pedal in Op. 101 from bar 29 onwards. Taking it always
on the first and fourth beats will bring out the inherent

rhythm, and the quivering quality of this passage.

As an example of the exactness of Beethoven's treat
ment of the pedal we may quote a passage from the end
of the second movement of the G major Piano Concerto,
Op. 58:

fl*l

!
Here, the quaver rests are split xip into two semiquavei
rests for the sake of the pedalling.
Beethoven also used the pedal to veil the atmosphere
in mist, as though he were painting a landscape. See, foi
example, the end o: the first movement of the Sonata.
Op. 81 A, the recitative passages in Op. 31, No, 2, and alsc

32

SONATA IN E FLAT MAJOR,

OP. 7

the Largo of the Piano Concerto No. 3 in C mino:r. In all

these cases the player must decide how far the modern
instrument allows him to comply with Beethoven's in
structions.

He

used the soft pedal, and his directions in the

sonatas. Op. 27, No. 2, and Op. 106 should be followed pre
cisely. The term senza sord. (which refers to the 'loud'
c
pedal), must not be confused, however, with the soft'
also

pedal which is marked by una, due, tre corde.

Beethoven's enemies found that he maltreated the
piano, that he made a confused noise with the pedal, and
that his playing lacked clarity and purity.

Sonata

E flat

in

major, Op. 7

Sonata, Op. 7, in E flat major, which the pub

lisher called Grande Senate, was dedicated in 1797 to the
Countess Babette de Keglevics, -who later became Princess

The

Odescalchi. This lady seems to have aroused Beethoven's

interest in a high degree. This did not, however, prevent

him from giving her lessons every morning in his dressing

gown and slippers. As soon as it appeared the sonata was
called the Verliebte^ It

a spirited work, sustained

is

by

strong feeling for nature, and one which, throughout its

complementary movements, impresses one as a rounded
creation of unique stamp.
Beethoven only rarely portrayed the same constellation
of feelings twice over in his major works. Once he had
described one such emotional world he did not return to
it.

In

this

he

differed

from Mozart, some

for example, are interchangeable.

1

The enamoured '.

*

of

whose

finales,

SECOND LECTURE
The

first

movement makes the

greatest demands on
of the insignificance

the player's individxiality. In view

it rather reminds one of the first
of the first subject
subject of the Eroica which is also in E flat and similarly
inchoate the player must make the most of the Allegro
molto e con brio. Above all there must be no slackening
the throbbing quaver rhythm
in the opening phrases
must urge the movement on. The time is not really 6/8
but, as is proved by the harmonic progressions, each group
of three quavers is the unit. The sforzando on the G flat
before the transition theme is a fine touch (bar 55). The
second subject in B flat seems to bring a feeling of calm
but the quavers reappear straight away and again the
movement rushes on impetuously. The semiquaver
figures in the coda (right hand) are technically difficult
if one tries to bring out the hidden melody. The develop
ment is rather scanty. The rhythmical structure of the
tied quavers marked sfz can be clarified by the use of the
pedal on the fourth quaver.
?

In the Largo, expression must be carried right across

the rests. The second and fourth bars should be given

more weight.
One always wonders whether a poetic image which one
finds helpful oneself means anything to other people, and
there is some truth in Pfitzner's remark that the descrip34

SONATA IN C MINOR,

OP.

10,

NO.

tion of a piece of music is like the painting of a dinner.

Nevertheless I will venture to suggest to you the picture
of a summer landscape with gigantic cumulus clouds from

which later on raindrops fall (the staccato semiquavers in

the left hand in A flat major, bar 25).

The

Scherzo has a Trio of peculiar and, for the period

in which it was written, novel pianistic charm (compare
the last movement of Chopin's Sonata in B flat minor).
In their opening notes the triplets contain a melody
which must be brought out clearly, though not impor
tunately. The pedal should be used only at the fortissimos.
The dry murmuring of the quaver triplets creates a
ghost-like effect which is heightened still further by the
sudden fortissimos they illuminate the gloomy landscape
like flashes of lightning. The sound of horns must be
produced in the coda.
:

The last movement is

The minore in C minor

Rondo of great charm.

some difficulty on account

a genuine
offers

of the figure which the weak fingers are required to play

with vigour. Whether he crosses over with his upper
fingers or changes the fingering according to the position
of the black keys will depend on whether the player is used
to putting the thumb on black keys. The modulation via
the note B to E major (bar 154) and the return to E flat
by means of the enharmonic change (C flat major) from
B to C flat is a stroke of genius. The sonorous coda con
cludes not merely the Rondo but also the sonata as a

whole.

Sonata

in

minor, Op. 10 No.

y

The work was composed in Beethoven's twenty-sixth

year and shows how early he achieved his own unique
35

SECOND LECTURE
For me this sonata is

symphonic style.
teristic example of

his organic

mode

the most charac

of composition and

equalled in this respect only by the Coriolan Overture

and the Fifth Symphony.
All three movements have a classical quality. The
masculine opening movement, the solemn Adagio and the
prestissimo Finale in small note- values with its modula

remote keys and its pauses before the end are

all genuine Beethoven.
The work was dedicated to the Countess Anna Margarete von Browne, wife of the Count Browne who pre
sented Beethoven with a riding horse a gift which
Beethoven forgot until he was unpleasantly reminded of
it by a
large bill for fodder $ his servant had been hiring
the horse out and keeping the proceeds for himself.

tions into

An

movement will show how closely

and organically everything is fitted together. The subject
consists of the rising C minor triad in dotted rhythm with
a broad feminine ending by way of contrast the opening
of Mozart's great C minor Sonata (K. 457) may have been
the model for this. The bars which lead into the second
analysis of the first

which begins

bar 56, are related to the opening

by the step of a sixth derived from the first subject.
The second subject too is really a variant of the first
four bars in the major. The tension is tremendous until
the second inversion of the E flat major triad is reached}
the codetta (bars 94 to 105) is derived from the feminine
subject

at

ending of bars 34.

The development: bar 106 begins with the

first

theme

in the major. The octave jumps "become tenths. Bars 118

to the recapitulation are an extension of the transition to

the second subject, which shows that Beethoven thought

thi$ transition rather important and possibly regarded it

SONATA IN

MINOR, OP.

10,

NO.

second main idea. Bars 136 ff. are derived from

119/120. The chords before the recapitulation are a con
traction of the triplet figure in bars 1720 (feminine
ending). The recapitulation is based exactly on the exposi
tion. The two fortissimos in the left hand in bar 188
correspond to the octave jumps and are repeated at the
end of the movement.
as

The Adagio molto, in two sections, with a coda, is

related to the Adagio of the Pathetique not only in key
but also in the triplet decorations and the repeated notes
in the accompaniment of the second subject. The theme
of the transition following the first subject has its proto
type in Bach's Sixth Partita, except that the demisemi-

quaver figure is inverted. One is inevitably reminded of

the first subject of the first movement. These affinities,
however, all have their place in the unconscious.
The player should be careful not to hurry the hemisemidemiquaver figures (bar 28) and should take a deep
breath before the long period from bar 24 onwards in
order to feel as one the whole passage leading to the
recapitulation. The epilogue should be a real after-thought
with the regularly syncopated E flats producing the effect
of a gradual dying away. The fact that Beethoven writes
pp in the i ith bar from the end and then makes the big
decrescendo also end in pp shows how relative such direc
tions are. What is required is a gradual and graduated
lessening of tone and this needs careful control and inner
calm, as does the whole movement.
The Prestissimo is in sonata form and demands a speed

which

will enable the left

the chords in bars

hand

to

perform quite clearly

912. The second theme

(conceived

an excessive pace.
for wind
The development contains the famous anticipation of
instruments) also prohibits

37

SECOND LECTURE
the Fifth Symphony. In the coda, the modulation to
D flat major and the return and combination of both the
main ideas in the major are ingenious. Ghostly as is the
whole movement, the theme vanishes with the rhythm
derived from the accompanying figure in bar 12.

Sonata

in

F major,

Op. 10, No. 2

cheerful character of this sonata, its amiability and

humour, also account for the somewhat loose texture of
the work. This is the way in which Beethoven may have
improvised, taking for a start of the development the last

The

bar of the exposition of the first movement and going on

to invent a new section. The omission of a second theme
in the last movement, the relaxing of its fugato into a
how easily the com
pianistically inviting end-piece show
this en
poser's ideas fluctuated during the writing of
chanting work.
To provide a serious element, the Allegretto is in the
minor, though it is mitigated presently by the soft
Schubertian D flat major of the Trio.
First movement: Riemann calls the first four bars a
curtain' and finds the heart of the subject in bars 58.
From this Beethoven develops the counter-statement in
C major1 which almost makes a stronger impression than
the actual second subject (bar 58). The codetta should be
c

played very clearly. The development is a very simple

variation on the last bar of the exposition. The anticipa
tion of the opening in
major before the recapitulation

proper

is

delightful.

Strictly speaking, the second subject group starts here, where

the dominant is fully established. P*H.
1

3*

SONATA IN D MAJOR,
The main

OP.

10,

NO.

sound like question and

rather
than
counter-question
question and answer. The
be
used
should
pedal
very sparingly. The whole of the
development should be played pellucidly, with the thumb
of the right hand bearing the melody in the semiquaver
triplets. The
gently so that

subject should

major section should be played very

the return to the vigorous opening in the

makes a real contrast.

second movement, which is marked Allegretto, is
akin to the Allegro molto e vivace from Op. 27, No. i,
and should be played with the most beautiful legato,
without pedal, possibly con sordino. The Trio should be
simple and tender. Note the Schubertian cast of the
recapitulation

The

melody.

The
mands

a mixture of sonata

and fugato and de

good technique. The Presto should not be over
with
a view to bars 87 ff. Despite the j^, the subject
done,
in the bass here should not impede the clarity of the
Finale

is

right-hand figures. Bach's two-part Invention in F may

have been the model; the passage is also akin to the
second movement of the First Symphony. Its difficulty is
best overcome

by

Sonata
This

is

in

from

a loose wrist.

major, Op. 10, No.

the greatest of the three sonatas,

ments forming
tion

slight rotation

of interest

its

four

move

wonderful unity. The happy distribu

among contents, formal beauty and

made it a great favourite

first movement provides the

pianistic brilliance has

in the

concert hall. If the

pianist

with a rewarding task, the Largo is one of the deepest

inspirations of Beethoven the melancholy. Great delicacy

39

SECOND LECTURE
of feeling is required in passing directly from the Largo
into the Minuet: if one begins the Minuet gently and
will give a sense of relief 5 too

heavy-handed a
start will make the change of feeling sound too abrupt.
The Finale is full of humour reminding us of Beethoven's
liking for jokes and puns.
The form of the first movement is quite straightfor
ward. The main subject, the first notes of which constitute
the basic motif of the whole movement, should be
calmly

it

phrased thus:

The

second subject (bar 53)

requires a short appoggiatura since it was Beethoven's

custom to write out long appoggiaturas in four quavers.

The theme

of the preceding transition in B minor sup

plies a greater contrast, than the actual second subject.

The accompaniment must be

transparent: the pedal

should be used carefully, just to underline the bass line.
The sfs after the second subject refer only to the single,

horn-like notes.

The Largo

e mesto

is

said to

have been composed under

the impact of reading the description of Klarchen's death

in Goethe's Egmont. There is a striking affinity in the
final bars with Schubert's Death and the Maiden. The
form is ternary, with elements of sonata form. The
second main idea, in A minor, is reminiscent of Tristan:

40

SONATA IN D MAJOR,

OP.

10,

NO.

wild despair alternates with lamentation. The penulti

mate section of the coda requires the most careful
differentiation of the demisemiquavers until they finally
die away.

The Minuet, which

begins under the impact of the

foregoing elegy, should give a sense of release like the
gentle chords after the storm in the Pastoral Symphony.
In the second section the sforzandos should be moderate.
In the Trio the difference between staccato and legato
in the left hand should be brought out very clearly.
The last movement, a Rondo, must not give an impres
sion of anti-climax. The player must have a vivid sense
of the questioning and answering, the continual running
hither and thither, the hide-and-seek game that Beet
hoven carries on with the three notes of the subject. The
same notes, namely the step of a second followed by a
third, are found in the main subject of the first movement,
at the beginning of the Largo, in the Trio of the Minuet
(in the bass), and also in the splendid syncopated chords
at the end of this last movement (bar 102). The whole

movement

is lit

up with

flashes of

summer

lightning.

Every return of the rondo theme should be given a

different colouring: it will help if the ornaments in
bars 4, 28, 59 and 67 are given varied treatment. The
final passages in the right hand need careful study.
leave this work with the sense of having met a
personality who is still young but who has already ex
perienced the main elements of human feeling, tasted
soaring ecstasy as well as deepest grief, the blessings of
consolation and the exuberance of an eternally creative
nature.

We

THIRD LECTURE
On

Practising

As with most cultural activities, so with practising,

methods differ from one individual to another according
to the student's temperament, physical constitution and
mental attitude. One thing applies to all, however:
thoughtless repetition should be eschewed. Whether it is
a matter of memorizing, of mastering particular tech
nical problems or understanding the structure of a work,
the player who thinks, and thinks intensely, will make

the greatest progress. Technique resides in the head, not

in the fingers.
Baron van Swieten, Maria Theresa's gentleman-mwaiting, and a friend of Mozart's, was instructed by the
Empress to reclaim the county of Glatz from Frederick

The King

listened to the proposal and replied:

Apparently the powers that be in Vienna think I have
head and not in
the gout in
legs.'

the Great.
*

my

my

Intense self-observation, awareness of the processes of

movement, of the difficulties and their causes will lead
to detect a problem., and to solve it by exclusive
attention to it. Alfred Cortot says, in the Preface to his

one

edition of Chopin's &tude$:

'Travaillez non seulernent le passage
?

difficile,

mais

la

difficult^ m&rne, qui s y trouve contenue, en

son caract&re ^l&mentaire. ('Do not merely practise the
difficult passage, practise the difficulty as such which is
contained therein by restoring to it its essential character/)

lui restituant

That

is

excellent counsel.

42

ON PRACTISING
One

movements in the world is the

and
of
the unicellular creatures of the
opening
closing
sea, or of the mussels and oysters. The movements of the
human heart and lungs, too, comply with this basic move
ment which is common to all creatures. This contraction
and expansion also underlies the work of the muscles.
We must attend not only to the contraction but in par
of the basic

ticular to the expansion.

Fundamentally, there are really only five or six basic

movements and their combinations involved in pianoplaying. The difficulties arise mainly from the alternation
of the movements or the use of opposite movements in

the two hands 5 the persistent repetition of one and the

same movement can also be a great strain.
The contraction of the muscles is nature's protective
but this prevents their
reaction to every difficulty
recovery and the supply of fresh blood. The supreme lawis to
manage with the minimum of movement, exertion
and contraction. It is incredible the amount of energy
that is being squandered unnecessarily 5 yet it is only by a
relaxed touch that we can give our playing beauty and
conviction. The inability to relax is our enemy in life in
general as well as in piano-playing. The Indians have
been teaching the management of tension and relaxation
for thousands of years. Whether in breathing or in
higher pursuits, every exertion must be followed by
5

relaxation.

What

is

the best way, then, to set about studying a

work? To begin with, I must mention a new method

which you will find described in the well-known book by
Leimer-Gieseking and practised in Switzerland by Frau
Langenhahn-Hirzel. It is based on our ability to imagine a
piece of music without actually playing it. At the outset,
43

THIRD LECTURE
merely given the score of the work. It is
subjected to detailed analysis and only when the student
has assimilated the piece mentally, and in fact knows it
by heart, does work begin at the instrument. Here again,

the student

is

technical problems are made conscioxis by analysis.

This system, the benefits of which are many, provides,

and foremost, a stupendous training of the mind and

one's ability to concentrate, such as was provided cen
turies ago, by the schools of the church.
have been
first

We

tremendously spoilt by the invention of music-printing,

and it is important to remember that to begin with music
was created from the mind and the memory. Knights of
*

the keyboard' was

who were

how Bach

scornfully

dubbed players

without their instrument.

the
truth of the conception on which this
Despite
teaching is based and the splendid results it obtains with
many students, I cannot help feeling critical about the
lost

principle it involves, namely the purely mental assimila

tion of music. I regard it as part of the rational, intellec

which attempts to subdue every

thing to the intellect and the mind, the view of the world
which has brought about this technical age with its
many admirable features, but which leaves out of its
reckoning the whole wide field of the psychic and emo
tional capacities in man. It is very easy to demonstrate
the process of cause and effect in mechanical and tech

tual view of the world

nical matters, but very difficult to describe the forces that

are truly creative.
leave out of account these great

Why

energies which give us so much?

We also have a motor' memory which helps us
*

to

remember the movements of the fingers. This has often

saved me when ray conscious memory has let me down.
Then there is the visual memory which makes it impor44

ON PRACTISING
tant always to use the same edition of a work. There is
also the melodic and harmonic memory. Best of all, how
ever, is that unconscious co-operation of all these kinds
of memory -which operates so clearly in the child prodigy.
How should one begin practising a work? Let us
assume that one is quite new to the work. First of all, play
it

straight through ; then analyse

its

form, separating

repeated from what is new and only occurs once

in the work. Then you will already be able to see where

what

is

the problems, specifically those of technique, lie. Working

at them for short periods over a longish stretch of time,
during which you may study other works, is better than
drudging away at one problem for a long time without
a break.

The intervening

nights, in

which you

sleep
over' your problems, are also of importance. Working in
this manner, the average player will find after a while

that he knows the piece by heart. Conscious attention, to

be sure, must be given to the so-called track-points',

i.e. the passages that diverge in repeats.
When the time is ripe for attending to matters of
interpretation you must strive to get all the feeling,
rhythm and beauty out of the work which you can find
in it. This is where your imagination, your emotions and
passions must be active in the highest degree. A period
will follow in which one should attend to the production
of beautiful tone and fluency. It is important at this stage
to take into account the composer's personal style and the
style of the particular work, as well as the style of the
'

period. Next comes a living conception of form, a search

for internal balance. Finally there should be a check to
see that all the composer's directions (dynamics, rhythm,

phrasing) are being scrupulously observed. Then, play

the work through several times trying to combine all the

4S

THIRD LECTURE
requirements we have mentioned, not forgetting to keep
the body as relaxed as possible.
It is salutary to put on one side for a time works that
one has studied in this way. Taken up again after a fairly
they will reveal new facets. Some things will
seem easier than they did to begin with, while new
beauties and deeper meanings will be perceived by a
long

rest,

rested ear.

Sonata

in

minor, Op.

13

(Sonate Pathetique)

probably due to the

public's affection for titles. Anyway, the popular sonatas
are the ones with titles. In the present case the title came
from Beethoven himself and he probably wanted it to be
understood in the sense of pathos, i.e. suffering. Inciden
a similar
tally, Tchaikovsky's Symphonic Pathetique has

The

main
To

popularity of this sonata

is

minor).
my mind, this sonata is not so perfect and homo
geneous as some of the lesser-known ones. The first
movement is like an excerpt from the piano arrangement
of a symphonic work; the last movement is not commen
subject (in

surate with the

first

two.

The second movement, how

perfect in every respect.

The sonata was written in 1798 and dedicated to Prince
Karl Lichnowsky. This patron gave Beethoven a quartet
ever,

is

and an annuity of 600 florins.

marked by a magnificent intro

of Italian string instruments

The

first

movement

is

an introduction or really part of the main

movement? The repeat signs claim our decision on this
duction. Is
point. If

it

it is

part of the

from the beginning;

if

main movement we must repeat

it is an introduction, only from
46

SONATE PATH^TIQUE IN

MINOR, OP.

15

the Allegro. Riemann argues that the first idea (Grave)

is introduced
again before the development and at the
end. But it seems to me that the fact that Beethoven
omits the Grave idea in the recapitulation suggests that
he only wanted the repeat to start from the Allegro. To
repeat the whole of the opening Grave would make the
exposition unduly protracted in relation to the other
sections. It is obvious that the Allegro subject and, later
on, its continuation in the development are related to the
Grave theme. The second subject is also related to it.
There is a difficulty here: the mordent. Performed on the
beat,

it

will,

considering

its

speed,

easily result in

An

triplet.
anticipation, however, might lead to senti
mentality. The right way is anyone's guess.
The fp of the very first chord offers a further difficulty;
should this be playedy to begin with and then the whole

chord p until the demisemiquaver? Difficult though it is

to reproduce today, the orchestral effect of the fp is to
be preferred because it is more in accord with the idea
of pathetique. No crescendo should be made before the
recapitulation. The semibreve passage before the final

Grave gives

rise to

the five bars of staccato chords at the

end.

The

second

movement

is

one of Beethoven's most

glorious inspirations. Despite its emotionalism, it has to

have classical stance, and despite its classical simplicity,
it has to be full of feeling. How to do this? Give an ex

melody and obtain

symmetry by keeping the rhythm even.
pressive tone to the

The

simplicity

and

two-part writing of the last movement is hard to

bring off. If one takes the light rondo character of the
Allegro C as a guide the movement will contrast
overmuch with the others; if one plays it slowly, with

47

THIRD LECTURE
meaning

in every note,

it

may

easily

become wooden and

clumsy. I,
any rate, play the opening sotto voce and not
too fast, trying, at the same time, to give it some inner
excitement. To nay mind, the first E flat major theme is
the real second subject, and the strain in crotchets merely
an appendage (bar 44). The former is the inversion of
bars 15 to 15 of the main subject. That Beethoven attaches
at

more importance

to this

theme

(bar 25)

is

indicated by

The triplet figures (bars 51 ff.) should

be well articulated. The central episode in A flat with its
minims should be played warmly and cantabile, not
didactically. In the coda (bar 193) the movement resumes
his direction dolce.

again the general character of this work. Harsher dyna

mic accents are heard} the composer leads us to A flat
major, and just as he seems to be introducing the subject
again in A flat major, he suddenly returns to the tonic
C minor.

Sonata

in

major, Op. 14, No.

The two

sonatas, Op. 14, are usually studied first because

they are the easiest to play (besides Op. 49). Like all such
works, including the poems one is forced to learn by

heart at school,

it is difficult

to appreciate

them

in later

Dissection and repetition have made us insensitive

to their charm and beauty. For me, however, these
sonatas are among the sweetest and most sympathetic
life.

children of Beethoven's heart.

Another trouble is that the masses, these terrible
7
are inclined to label composers and, needless
simplifiers
?
the
to say,
label they attach to Beethoven is 'the heroic
'

They

refuse to believe that there can be gentle heroes,

SONATA IN E MAJOR,

OP.

14,

NO.

heroes of goodness and long-suffering. Let us not

forget
Beethoven's gentle side.
The E major sonata was composed in 1798. It has three
movements and is elegiac in character. By way of excep
tion, the middle movement provides the serious and
austere element and stands, in the minor, between the
sunlit movements in the major.

The form

movement is normal. The

has
one
subject
appendage, the second has two. That
the tempo is 4/4, not (p, is proved by the second subject.
The C major in the recapitulation, with its firmer
accompaniment, is magnificent. I should like to draw
attention to the customary octave doubling of the E in
the coda (bar 151), which is perhaps contrary to Beet
hoven's intentions.
of the opening

first

According to Schindler, Beethoven himself played the

second movement Allegro furioso, but we may perhaps
presume that Schindler had envisaged an easy-going
Allegro and was taken aback by Beethoven's performance.
All the same, in spite of this tradition, too fast a tempo
should be avoided. On the other hand, the observation
that Beethoven lingered on the C sfz shows that the
master had an entirely personal style which included
agogic accents for special events, such as strong disso
nances, rests and climaxes.
At the transition into the maggiore, the crescendo on
the high E and the portamento are a reminder that

Beethoven arranged the whole sonata for string quartet.

Both directions must remain illusory on the piano but I
would not like to live without illusions.

The

last

the form
sees

movement, Rondo-. Allegro commodo,

is

in

ABACA B-Coda. The affinity which Riemann

between the main subject of the

D
49

first

movement and

THIRD LECTURE
of the last reminds me

the first subject

of the English
teacher who derived Ross from Horse by a transposition
of the letters.
The second subject (first episode) is (bars 215):

The
must
the

central episode is a sort of Trio in

not be allowed to destroy the poetic

movement

as a

whole.

The

transition

major which
framework of
into F major is

delightful (bar 104). The bass-part preceding the coda

shows how Beethoven makes the most of the tiniest
motifSj the gradual dissolution of the main theme in a
syncopated variation and later in quavers is like the
observation .of a natural phenomenon on the part of
Beethoven: comparable to a slowly dissolving blanket of
cloud that reveals more and more fragments of blue sky.

And so we leave this lovely, warm

key to

which Beethoven entrusted

movements

(Op. 90, second

Sonata

in

piece in E major, the

so many of his happiest

movement Op.
j

109).

major, Op. 14, No. 2

This sunlit forest-scene might be called 'The Bird as

Prophet', so prophetic is it of Schumann. All the move
ments are written in a relaxed style. The syncopated
chords in the second movement and the bass-accompani
ment in the second subject of the last movement are
Schumannesque. Above all, there is an intimate feeling
5

SONATA IN
for nature

which

FLAT MAJOR,

anticipates the

The

OP.

<*a

Romantic composers.

Allegro of the first movement should not be taken

too fast in order to give the little birds in the
hand
right

time to sing their songs. Observe

how one motif grows

of the other as organically as leaf

a bough, and how from the

upon

leaf sprouts

out

from

beginning to the development,

one melody flows on the whole time. The

boughs of the
tree shake in the second subject} in the coda darker

shadows

How
second

fall.

delightfully staccato alternates with legato in the

variations! The varia

movement with the three

tion with the syncopated quavers moves

along so gently
that we must be careful not to play the sforzandos too
violently.

The duple rhythm within the

the last movement should free

triple barring (3/8) of

us from the bar-line.
Playfully, like insects, the motifs dart about in the clear
air of this G major.

Sonata

in

B flat

major, Op. 22

No doubt it was its grateful, florid piano-writing that

made this work formerly so popular; like all Beethoven's
dramatic works it has lost some of its popularity in
our day. Well played, however, it can afford great plea
sure by reason of its smoothness of form and charming
sound effects 5 even the rather Italianate and aria-like
Adagio is given grandeur by the breadth of its phrases.
The Rondo seems to me to be the most significant move
ment, significant by virtue of its wealth of ideas, thematic
relationships and its blend of variational and contra
less

puntal technique.

THIRD LECTURE
The

first

movement

cally everything

is

is

Themati-

in strict sonata form.

The de
theme and the main

again absolutely consistent.

velopment is formed by the codetta

theme, but everything flows along so naturally and easily
that one is unaware of the thematic structure, only
pleasantly

moved by the organism

as a

whole.

In the Adagio the sonata form is evident. The beat

with three times three quavers making a rhythmic
J.
xinit. The sequence of events is: first subject, second sub
ject, development, recapitulation. The development, in
particular, with its frequent repetition of the figure:
is

shows that the quavers must be played in a flowing

tempo. It is wonderful how Beethoven, in the recapitula
tion, dovetails the first-subject group and the transition,
and continues the latter in the minor (bar 59) in order to
introduce the second subject in E flat major.
The phrasing of the Minuet is debatable. Should

*p

it

be:

etc.

or:

-3-rlr

3E

1
etc,

more natural, the first is more graceful.

The main theme of the Rondo should be played with

If the second

amiability,

is

and the ensuing octaves with suppleness. The

SONATA IN

FLAT MAJOR,

OP.

2.2,

episode (bar 18), which later elaborates the quaver

figure of the rondo theme, has already more intensity^

first

and the minor

section (central episode) works up to the

pitch of a contrapuntal struggle in string quartet style
(bar 80). The demisemiquaver figure of this section, too,
is a transformation of the rondo theme. The coda of this

movement makes one

Beethoven intended it
form a conclusion to the sonata as a whole, not merely
feel that

the fourth movement.

53

to
to

FOURTH LECTURE
Beethoven's Personality
Beethoven's family history confirms the theory that
musical genius of the first rank never suddenly appears
from a background lacking in cultural interests. In the
case of musicians, generations are needed before the ulti
mate heights are reached by one solitary member of a
family. If painters should seem in a different case, this
is merely a delusion.
Great painters who come from
peasant stock (van Gogh, Rubens, Segantini, Nolde) enter
into ways already prepared for them since the peasant
lives with the forms and patterns of nature, light and
shade, landscape and animals, and is constantly assimila
ting optical impressions; he can estimate distances, read

the weather from the atmosphere, thus preparing for the

birth of an artist in light.
The ancestors of the Bachs, of the Haydns, Couperin,
Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert were all musicians, or
at least

engaged in

allied cultural pursuits.

The

aristo

the feeling for architectural beauty, for

traditional customs was also a daily experience for most of
them since they served at courts or in ecclesiastical
cratic sense,

establishments.

On the other hand, genius is brought to maturity by

hard and difficult circumstances. All these great masters
had a hard youth one might almost say they received
more blows than food, the blows usually taking the form
of hard work, often lasting far into the night. It is remark
;

able to observe

how

in their struggle for existence, for

54

BEETHOVEN'S PERSONALITY
income, first as child prodigies, then as em
ployees or independent musicians, the work of all these
masters was determined by the true artistic
spirit, the
success,, for

of service, and by a sense of profound moral

obligation. None of them was more conscious of this spirit
and more unyielding to the demands of the public than
spirit

Beethoven.

Let us look for a moment at the musical nourishment

that he received. As he was early
employed as an organist
in Bonn it was church music that
impressed him first
he
heard
at
the
concerts held at the Archbishop's
besides,
court the music of Stamitz, Gluck, Gretry, Benda, Dittersdorf, Paisiello, Bach and Handel. It must not be
imagined, however, that he possessed complete editions of
Bach and Handel. He knew only a tiny fraction of Bach's
work, including some of the Well tempered Clavier', and
he received Handel's works as a present from London
when he was already on his death-bed. In Vienna he
became acquainted with many of the works of Haydn and
Mozart, and I should like to correct the statement one
often hears that this or that passage in Mozart
already
sounds quite like Beethoven. Beethoven was seventeen
when he visited Mozart in Vienna. When Mozart died
Beethoven was twenty-one, and all these surprisingly
Beethovenish passages in Mozart are entirely original,
Beethoven was influenced by Mozart, not vice versa.
Without Don Giovanni the Sonata, Op. 27, No. 2 would
never have been written, nor Op. 10, No. i without
Mozart's C minor Sonata, nor Beethoven's C minor
5

Concerto without Mozart's concerto in that key. In spite

of the Mozartian influence, however, they all bear the
marks of Beethoven's personality.
Italian music occupied a prominent position, particu.

55

FOURTH LECTURE
larly in opera. It was from the Italians that Beethoven
acquired his sense of symmetry and beauty of form, as

well as the skilful treatment of stringed instruments. The

French clavier composers did not influence him; but the

solemn Gluck did.

What was it like in Bonn and Vienna in Beethoven's
time? They only had candlelight; no large concert-halls
that could be heated in the winter-time there were no
;

musical societies musical events that did not take place

privately had to be laboriously organized by the musicians
themselves on the other hand, one of the compensations
was that Nature still reached right into the heart of the
city, and to listen to her sounds it was not necessary to
travel half an hour on the underground. By his self5

assurance, which also expressed itself in coarseness and

fits of bad temper, and also by the innate nobility of his
heart, Beethoven raised the social standing of the musi

cian tremendously. Whereas the bewigged Bach could

still write in 1750:
Your Grace's utterly devoted servant
and most obedient subordinate the wigless Beethoven
c

signed himself:

'Your

friend, Beethoven'

when

writing

Archduke Rudolf.
Beethoven was apparently a child of the French Revolu
tion, of the Third Estate he acknowledged no preroga
tive of birth or money though he was aware of his own
to the

of music, with, all the social

obligations that devolve on such an exalted public ser
vant. At any rate he was not one to hanker after the

importance

as

a prince

favour of the masses, and he was a passionate champion of

individual freedom on an ethical basis. His reading in
cluded Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch, Shakespeare, Klopstock (of whom he said He always begins right up at the
c

top,

always maesto$o\

flat! ) 3

Schiller

and Goethe,

BEETHOVEN'S PERSONALITY
whom, he especially revered. Of contemporary poets he
came in touch with Grillparzer, Kotzebue, Collin, Matthison (Adelaide) and Rochlitz.

There are various approaches to life, and each of us

more or less to one of the following categories:
There is the outlook of the average person who is
entirely wrapped up in the events of the day and hour,
the shocks and blows, the pleasures and joys of the
passing moment his head scarcely ever rises above the
surface of everyday happenings. The pitiless machine of
eternal recurrence is his sad lot
of which he is, merci
inclines

fully, quite oblivious.

Then

there are the romantic natures

away by impressions and dreams; they

realization

of

nature's

the

dreams,

who

are carried

are, as it

human

were, a

voice

of

eternal nature.

Thirdly there are

building out of the
hands. They ignore
attributing no great

those who try to make their own

material that life puts into their
the trivial and the commonplace,
value to it. The strongest of these
5

are followers of Prometheus, essentially creative types.

Beethoven was a supreme example of this category, and
his

counterpart Michelangelo

greets

him

across

two

centuries.

Apart from these three types there is another and

rarer kind of man for whom life is a mere sport in the
Greek sense. Destiny is inevitable, law eternal and pre
determined. Inviolate and timeless, the gods look down

on human sorrows and human destiny, at

game that is played out on earth and in a
$

this

motley

similar

way

certain great men look at the world. In their works we

find not merely shining heroes but characters of various
kinds in changing hues. The fool is as dear to them as the

57

FOURTH LECTURE
king,

and even the murderer

poet does not judge.

With

is still

human

being- the

wisdom he allows

a heart of

everything to pass before our eyes as a divine sport.

Among such masters I count Shakespeare, Rembrandt
and Mozart. But Beethoven was not of this kind. It is true
that he gradually developed from the individualistic
fighter into an artist of more universal feeling, and in his
last works he draws a fine veil of mysterious immateri
ality over his music
fundamentally, however, he was
one of the Promethean, dynamic men who struggle with
their own genius and fight for the realization of their
ideals. In this sense he has had a profound influence on
later generations.

Sonata
In this sonata

in

A fiat

we meet

which

major, Op. 26

for the first

time one of those

psychological com
positions since they are intimately personal utterances
and, strictly speaking, represent transitional stages in
creations

should like to

call

Beethoven's development. At first glance, their form

seems freer arid more unconventional, though in fact it
is

as closely

worked and

strictly controlled

as that

of

other sonatas.

The normal sequence

of

movements

often changed
psychological links between them are
is

but the
stronger and the demands made on the interpreter
greater. To this group I assign Opp. 26, 27, No. i and
No. 2, 78, 8iA, 101 and 109,
In the present sonata Beethoven begins with a qtiiet
variation movement followed by a forceful
Allegro; the
famous Funeral March is followed by a Rondo. It is not
here,

SOINATA IN A FLAT MAJOR, OP. 26

easy to make the unity of the work felt} in particular the
last two movement^ seem to be irreconcilably opposed to
one another. Some critics think it necessary to introduce
the principle of opposites to explain the last two move
ments. That appears to me to be rather too facile an
explanation, suggested by the apparent velocity of the
Rondo. 1 prefer to moderate the Allegro of the last
movement, attaching great importance to Beethoven's
piano thereby establishing a link with the Funeral
March. It is as if a shower of rain fell after the funeral,
,

veiling the burial ground in a consoling grey mist. One

could say the stage is now empty, and Nature has the last
word} rather as Chopin's Funeral March is followed by
the notably difficult Finale in modo di Goya. Without
such modification, the piece will become a sort of Cramer
study and that was surely not Beethoven's intention.
It is not easy to decide on the tempo of the first move
ment if this is to be maintained throughout the varia
tions. One should try and choose a golden mean. Above
all, beware of playing the fourth variation twice as
quickly a common mistake. The second variation is an
anticipation of the brilliant violin variation in the

Kreutzer Sonata. It should be played loosely and softly.

In the Scherzo, the figure in thirds (bar 27) should be
firmly committed to the mind before the fingers actually
play it. The ties in the Trio are Beethoven's (do not
crescendo too early). The Funeral March should be
played portato. Too much pedal should be avoided after
writes
all, the drumheads are draped in black. Beethoven
end: Pedal in the bass.
consolatory
quite clearly at the
The transformation, sometimes advocated, of the drum

from exact demisemiquavers into an indistinct

tremolo is not to be recommended. As in the Pastoral
roll

59

FOURTH LECTURE
painting, but the expression of feeling
borne in mind here.
be
to
motto
the
The Rondo alternates between strains of three and two

Symphony, Not

'

'

is

Between the repeats of the rondo theme there are

two episodes, the first occurring twice, the central one
being in C minor a coda on an A flat pedal-note closes
the movement with two poignant suspensions. Night has
bars.

fallen.

Sonata
The two

in JL flat

major, Op. 27, No.

sonatas, Op. 27, deviate from, the usual

and Beethoven therefore added the

sxibtitle

scheme,
quasi una

fantasia.

The sequence

movements
Andante in the

of the

is

quite unusual:

first

movement^
Allegro,
in
the
Presto
last move
Adagio, Allegro vivace, Adagio,
ment of Op. 27, No. ij Adagio sostenuto, Allegretto,

Andante,

Presto agitato in Op. 27, No. 2. Such structures need

sensitive handling if they are to give a feeling of psycho
logical unity. The Allegro in C major in the opening

movement of the E flat sonata can collide painfully with

the Andante in E flat if it is not managed with great care.
It should not be taken too quickly, and somehow or
other a psychological link must be established between
the second bar of the Allegro and the interval of the third
at the beginning of the Andante.
As Riemann points out, genuine linear articulation
keeps a piece on the move even at a slow speed, while
figuration, i.e. the decoration of an Adagio melody by
small note-values, will retain its quiet character. In
other words, what matters are the implied rhythmic

60

SONATA IN E FLAT MAJOR,

OP. 27, NO. i

units, and just these are not easy to determine at the
opening of this sonata. This is shown by the fact that
Casella gives a metronome marking of 80 for the minims,
d Albert 84 for the crotchets, i.e. almost twice as slow.
Where is the subject's true centre of gravity? Does it
begin with an anacrusis and if so, do the many half-bar
sforzandos confirm or contradict this? How does one
avoid triviality in the main theme, especially in bars 9
to 12? Can there be a sequence
weak-strong, weak?

'

strong, weak-strong, strong- weak (bar 4)?

All these questions of grammar were answered for
5

me

by an experience I had when I was on a concert tour in

the South. I was in a small town and wanted to practise
before my concert. Looking for an instrument, I -was
given the name of a grocer. I called on him and was

shown

into a pleasant room where a small girl about

fourteen years old opened a grand piano for me to prac
tise on. As she leant against the piano
listening, but not
looking at me, 1 asked if she played herself and when she
replied that she did I asked her to play me something.
Without a word she sat down and played Op. 27, No. i,

with a naturalness, gentleness, equanimity and sadness

that suggested that this was a true expression of some
hidden suffering. She knew nothing about subjects on
the upbeat' or the metronome marks of various editors,
but inside her there beat the heart of the Beethoven who
composed this sonata. Deeply moved by her playing, I
had found the solution to my problems.
The second movement is a genuine Beethoven Scherzo,
of the demonic kind. The motifs derived from the C
'

ghost-like over the keys. Even if you

phrase in two-bar groups, weak to strong, do not hesitate
to discontinue this at the forte. Behind all the music of

minor chord scurry

61

FOURTH LECTURE
the Vienna

there lurks the danger of monotonous

the Viennese wooden fence that
rhythm
divides everything off into four-bar phrases. Always feel
the shape of the melodies and mould them freely. Get
classics

what

I call

away from four-bar

phrases.

In the repeat, the syncopated notes suggest a journey

into Hades.
The form of the Adagio is A B A. The Allegro vivace
movement is in rondo form and apparently has several
themes., but closer examination shows them all to be
related. The short Presto that occurs after the repeat of
the Adagio in the tonic is also derived from the rondo
theme. After a number of performances, the player will
become joyfully aware of the work's unity when nearing
the end, and will be able to communicate this feeling to
his audience.

Sonata

in

C sharp

Scarcely any sonata has

minor, Op. 27 No. 2

,

had

much

written about it as
Op. 27, No.
though it only lasts sixteen minutes. In
Beethoven's own time it was called the Laube (Arbour)
sonata because it was thought to have been composed in
so

an arbour. The nickname Moonlight Sonata came from

the poet Rellstab who was inspired to call it that by a
moonlit night on the Lake of Lucerne. Speaking of nick
names, the Sonata, Op. 55, which in German-speaking
countries

'

Waldstein-Sonate after its dedicatee,

is called Uaurore ('dawn )
by the French. Op. 28 is
called Pastoral Sonata' in France and England.
is

called

From

various facts that have

come

to

my knowledge

have conceived a different theory of the origin of the

62

SONATA IN
work which
ing any

There

SHARP MINOR,

should like

OP. 27, NO. a

to mention here without claim

historical authenticity for

is

it.

in Vienna a manuscript of Beethoven's

which

from Mozart's Don Giovanni in

Beethoven's undoubted hand: the passage after Don
Giovanni has killed the Commendatore. Underneath
Beethoven has transposed the passage into C sharp minor,
and the absolute similarity of this with the first move
ment of Op. 27, No* 2, is quite unmistakable. In particular
the postlude is note for note as in Mozart.
At the time one of Beethoven's aristocratic friends
died and was laid out in state in his palace. One
night
contains a few lines

Beethoven

have improvised

he sat by the
corpse of his friend; is it so unlikely that Beethoven was
reminded of the similar scene in Don Giovanni and that
this was the reason for the striking similarity which we
have mentioned? In any case, there is no romantic moon
light in this movement: it is rather a solemn dirge.
Beethoven's direction: 'Si deve suonare tutto questo
pezzo delicatissamente e senza sordini should be fol
lowed precisely: the whole movement should be played
with the utmost gentleness and without the dampers, that
is

said to

as

to say, with the pedal.

Beethoven indicated this

is

The tempo should

by the

not drag:

alia breve sign. It

is

probably merely an accident that the first two bars have

no legato slurs. The dotted rhythm in the fourth crotchet
of the fifth bar must be executed very gently, and care
should be taken to see that the last semiquaver (G sharp)
is closely joined to the
following long note. In bar 8
I play the last B in the upper part with the left hand to
achieve a perfect legato. In bar 12, in the middle part,
I play a C instead of a B for the fifth quaver. I can offer
no documentary evidence but I find it difficult to forgo

FOURTH LECTURE
the step from C to C sharp in the middle part. But then,
the first two pages of the manuscript are lost*
The Allegretto should not be played too fast, otherwise
the many suspensions from bar 9 onwards will not receive
their due value. To my mind the three accompanying
crotchets in bar 10 should be played with the strictest
possible staccato in spite of the awkwardness this involves.
In the Trio we meet in the left hand an A flat held for
?

four bars and later on a D flat, both of which are marked

fortepiano. These notes must therefore come through
quite independently of the bass.
The last movement depicts a storm. In bars i and 2
similar bars there should be

no crescendo. The

and in

this bar, too, legato

sforzandos in bar z

and

all

first

real crescendo

is

in bar 19

slurs appear for the first time.

and elsewhere must give the

The
with

The

effect of a flash of lightning.

of the small notes in bars 155 and 155 coincide

the first bass-note. Notice that in bar 187, before the

first

Adagio, the figure in the right hand was written by Beet

hoven in quavers: it must therefore be played slower than
the preceding semiquavers. It may be of interest to men
tion that Liszt is said to have played the whole last move
ment in a relatively broad tempo, emphasizing the forte
passages, however,

with tremendous energy and expres

sion.

Sonata

in

major, Op. 28

Composed in 1801 in close proximity to the C sharp minor

Sonata, it nevertheless differs fundamentally from that
work. This sonata has been nicknamed the Pastoral, and
not inaptly. There is a feeling of Nature in this piece a
?

i
*

o
-s

!*

SONATA IN D MAJOR,

OP. 28

presence of the god Pan such as we find only in the Pas-,

Symphony itself. There, however, the themes are
more clear-cut. In the piano sonata, there is a shimmering
as of summer air, a murmuring of bees and a fragrance:
one can almost feel the warm sun on one's skin. All
our instincts are aroused, and, in a trance, natural man
within us feels at one with mother earth.

toral

By what means did Beethoven achieve this

and happiness? The calm tranquillity of the

sense of joy

which

is

repeated sixty times in the left hand contributes a great

deal; the gradual rising and falling of the melody in small
all these
intervals, the repetition of similar phrases
elements give the work a sense of wideness and peace.
The three main ideas are easily discerned and they are
all
is

more

The codetta, too,

The development,

or less related to one another.

a transformation of the second idea.

the central section of which derives entirely from the last

bar of the first subject, gives the impression of a brief
afternoon storm ; it is wonderful the way everything
gradually comes to rest on the F sharp.

Then a merry sunbeam slips in like a child breaking in

on a serious meeting but it stops, suddenly frightened.
The

repeated in the minor, turns to the tonic

major, and once again the summery magic fills the re
idea

is

capitulation.

simple ternary layout of the second movement

needs little comment. Provided one exactly follows
Beethoven's directions, staccato and legato, the idea of the
movement will emerge of its own accord. Needless to say,
the sforzandos in bars 15 and 14 should not all be
equally loud; in bar 15 the C sharp remains sounding on
its own. In the Trio, the tempo should remain the same;

The

it

should therefore sound leisurely and an alternation as

E
6$

FOURTH LECTURE
between horns and a solo flute should be aimed at. The
tempo of the movement should be determined by the
demisemiquavers in bars 71 ff. The pp of the preceding
and succeeding bars will greatly modify the strength of
the sfz, in the penultimate bar. In the Scherzo see that
the two quavers are separated from the following crotchet.
The Trio offers an opportunity to play the melody with
different tone colouring at each of its eight near-identical
statements.

The

movement

founded on a drone-bass and has

true pastoral character. The final Presto should be played
with brilliance, and non legato in the final bars.
last

is

66

FIFTH LECTURE

Interpreters
without saying that an artist's interpretation of a
particular work is just as dependent on the environment
from which he comes as on the schools where he acquired
his skill and knowledge. His personal feelings and charac
ter will also play a great part. But I believe the deepest
influence of all comes from the example set by the great
masters of the keyboard.
In what follows I have no intention of criticizing the
It goes

interpretations of particular artists, I merely want briefly

to describe them. As I have already said, there is a piano
c
method by Carl Czerny "which contains many references
'

own character and performances. The

was probably based very largely on this.
His edition was a rather personal one, however, and is no
longer entirely acceptable. He was followed by Eug&ne
d' Albert and Hans von Biilow, masters whom I heard
myself. Von Biilow, a man of great wit, and a strong per
sonality, had wide influence at a time when the general
musical public was still greatly in need of enlightenment.
Quite aware of this state of affairs, he dispensed instruc

to Beethoven's

Liszt tradition

tion in his recitals

by boldly underlining

his convictions.

He made

a habit of performing little-known works twice

in succession, notably the great Sonata, Op. 106. His
edition of the Diabelli Variations is invaluable. Eugfene

was more a
and
healthy
vigorous
d* Albert

man

of the concert-platform. His

style of playing was an example to
us alL Casella represents the modern musician, above all,

FIFTH LECTURE
the composer, and his notes are most instructive, albeit

somewhat
Artur

Italian in character.

Schnabel's

outstanding intellectual qualities

make his edition of the sonatas one of great interest, it is
a rich source of enlightenment, and if studied closely can
almost replace the personal tuition of the master himself.

Sometimes, admittedly, he goes too far, especially in his

requirement that every trill, every pause, and even a rest
between two movements should be counted out. If one
every pause, all the spontaneity of
performance may go by the board. Schnabel made
deepest impression on me when he played freely
as if in private, entirely engrossed in the spirit of
work.
counts

out

the
the

and
the

made their greatest impact when they

in
accordance with an interpretation all cut
played not
and dried beforehand but when they surrendered to the
These

artists

sway of their imagination.

It

edition of Beethoven's sonatas

is

by

a pity that we have no

Busoni since he was one

of the most personal and absolutely independent of in

terpreters as is shown by the analysis of the fugue from
Op. 106 in his edition of Bach.
Whenever I listened to d' Albert and other great artists
(Reger, Bartok) I often wondered how they achieved the
astonishing musicality and inner logic of their per
formances. I came to see that it was a clear awareness of
the harmonic progressions which made their playing so
convincing and absorbing. No show was made of the
ordinary course of events, but when a true modulation
began it was significantly underlined. They led us with a
sure hand from one key to another, from one section of
the work to the next, giving us the impression of some

thing .that had grown organically. That

68

may be what

dis-

THE THREE SONATAS,

OP. 31
tinguishes interpreters who also compose from players
are fundamentally uncreative.

The Three Sonatas, Op.

who

21

These three

sonatas, "which were written in 1801

1802, represent a renewed search for the pianistic

and
and

creative possibilities latent in piano sonata form. The

great diversity of the three works in itself is sufficient

proof of that. While the first is serene and almost

Haydnesque in style, the second, in D minor, is demonic,
and the third is full of joie de vivre in so capricious a
vein as we rarely meet in Beethoven.
It is not easy for us to discern the great progress from
one work of Beethoven's to another because we know of
the later developments.
cannot forget the 7th sym

We

phony when we listen to the 2nd; and when we are

working at the C minor Sonata, Op. 10, we are uncon
sciously aware that Op. in was to come. Most difficult of
all, perhaps, is to remember that Beethoven himself
could know nothing of the works that he was called upon
to create subsequently.

That he was seeking for new paths is clear from a

remark which he made to his friend, the Bohemian
I am not satisfied with my
violinist Wenzel Krumpholz
works to date} from now on I want to take a different
That he was grappling with the problem of
road.
renovating the sonata is also shown by the reply he made
to the publisher Hoffmeister who had conveyed to him a
commission from a lady for a revolutionary sonata on new
lines: 'Are you possessed by the devil, the whole lot of
'

you, gentlemen

what, suggest to

me that I

should write

FIFTH LECTURE
At the time of the revolutionary
time it would have been worth con
sidering, "but now that everything is trying to get back
into the old rut, Buonaparte has made his concordat with
a sonata of that sort?
fever, well, at that

the Pope a sonata of that sort?

Good heavens, a
sonata of that sort at the beginning of this new Christian
age ho-ho! count me out of that, for nothing will come
Now my reply, post-haste. The lady can have a
of it,
sonata of mine, and indeed I will follow her general plan
as far as the aesthetics of the thing is concerned
but I
won't stick to her key-scheme. The price about 5 florins
for that she can enjoy the sonata for a year, during which
neither I nor she may publish it. When that year has
passed the sonata is mine exclusively i.e. I can and shall
publish it, while she can insist, if she thinks that this "will
redound to her honour, that I dedicate it to her.
Let us now look at the rarely played
.

Sonata
First

movement:

major, Op. 11, No. 1

after a dashing start, the

main charac

movement appears the anticipation of the

hand by the right. The same pattern is repeated in

teristic of

left

in

the

F major.

After the dominant,

major, has been reached,
the pattern appears again in G, and modulates to F sharp,
the dominant of B, in which key the second subject is
introduced. A short codetta with a melancholy alterna

major and minor is reminiscent of Schubert. The

development and recapitulation are normal; the extended
coda is particularly charming. Its humour and delightful
little surprises show us clearly just how Beethoven wished
the whole movement to be conceived. Beethoven maintion of

SONATA IN G MAJOR,

P. 31,

NO.

tained his sense of humour,

though it sometimes took a
rather grim turn, to the very end.
It is doubtful whether the
piano at the beginning of
the movement is correct. I play it forte at

any rate,
Beethoven wanted the third bar to be a contrast, as is
shown by his direction piano.
The second movement: Have you ever come across an
old country-house in the middle of an old-world
park with
;

fountain? When the great Venetian blinds

are opened the light floods into a world
long since van
ished
a world of faded carpets, furniture of all
periods,
with an old spinet and a smell of withered rose-leaves.
The atmosphere of such an old house fills one with nos
talgia for a past in which there was still time to exchange
sweet secrets with the flowers and listen to
birdsong at
eventide.
This is the kind of feeling I get in the second move
a

murmuring

ment, with its ornaments, trills and its adagio grazioso

may Beethoven not have been looking back to the past
quite deliberately for once? The form is A B A, A
being in three sections. B, with its semiquaver staccatos,

more movement. It is important to

the
ornaments
of the main subject very fluently and
play
without too strict a metrical division, while the bass
keeps to strict time. When the opening theme, which is
reminiscent of Haydn's Mil Wiir<T und Hoheit angetan,
appears in the bass it must be played softly and trans
parently, not clumsily.
introduces rather

The third movement is

a cheerful Rondo the episodes

section
which
flows along in triplets, and
major
the section in the minor which is characterized
a series
are the

by

of modulations. The whole movement

may be conceived
as in sonata form with the
contrapuntal passages in the
71

FIFTH LECTURE

1
keys being the development. In the coda, one must
be careful not to take the bars marked adagio too slowly
all that the composer intended was an improvisatory
freedom such as often occurs, later on, in Schubert.

flat

Sonata

in

D minor,

Op. 31, No. 2

movement: 'Read Shakespeare's Tempest* Beet

hoven said when asked to Explain the meaning of this
sonata. It must be admitted, however, that this remark

First

',

.does not help us

much

merely tells us that

nature's demons, wind and water, have a hand in this
very

it

movement.
arpeggio six-three chord of A major rises at the
opening like a question mark, like an improvisation

The

no

on the

even the dominant is in

-its root-position
everything is vague and undertermined. Nevertheless this is the first subject, just as the
succeeding allegro bars with their imbricated motif
contain the nucleus of the second subject. To make the
first subject, when it appears in definitive shape in bar 21,
there

is

start

tonic, not

clearly recognizable for what it is, the initial arpeggio

must not be played too slowly and the uppermost note
must be given plenty of melodic force. This will best be
done with exended fingers. For the second subject
(bars 41 ff.)> the fingering 4-2, 2-3, 4-2 and later (for the
1

the

The customary term for Rondos whose

first theme is Sonata Rondo. P.H.

J2

central episode develops

SONATA IN D MINOR,

OP. 31, NO. a

broken diminished seventh) 2-4, 12-4, 2-4 is to be recom

mended; the
'

latter fingering also in bars

15

ff.

All these

'

imbricated figures must, of course, be played from the

arm. From bar 2,2, onwards play the
melody every time
with the left hand, crossing over the
right. The phrasing
of the second subject is as follows:

but for the third time

suggest:

Similarly the first Allegro of the movement. Referring to

the second subject's sequel (bars 55 ff.) Beethoven said:
'

The piano must break!

The repeat should be observed. The three broken chords
?

at the beginning of the

development should be played on
'three different levels of tone, the last in F
sharp ppp.

play the B flat in the first triplet of bar 1120 with the
right hand.
Because of the recitatives which follow the main sub
ject in the recapitulation, the work has sometimes .been
called the Recitative Sonata. These
passages should have a
I

somehow indeterminate character. On the

modern piano Beethoven's long pedal-marks are not
always appropriate. I hold the chords C sharp-E-A and

fantastic,

EG

silently with
necessary for the right

the left and use the pedal

hand.

73

as

FIFTH LECTURE
the passage in bar 170, beginning already in
169, between the left and right hand:
I divide

ff.), which it is possible to play

on the modern piano, I prefer Beethoven's
version with the harsh D:

In the variant (bars 189

in octaves

The

two chords should be played with great

meaning and a slight emphasis on the interval of the
third in the upper part (inversion of the third at the
beginning of the movement). One feels that the whole
movement has been striving after the calm of these last
three bars from the very outset*
The second movement in binary form breathes an air
final

of calmj only the second idea with its drum-like triplets

has a marching motion. The second bar should be played

an appendage to the first. The second subject proper, in

F major, which is marked- dolce^ has a moving, childlike
simplicity. The dreaded demisemiquaver-passages in the
left hand at the repeat of the main subject can be given
to the right hand: that was, however, probably not Beet
hoven's intention. Quiet concentration should overcome
as

the difficulty. Notice that in bars 69 ff. duplets appear in

place of the triplets.
It is strange that the whole movement should consist
almost entirely of major chords, whereas the third move-

74

SONATA IN E FLAT MAJOR,

ment

OP, 31, NO.

wholly in the minor, with the exception of two

which seem all the brighter by contrast.
There is an interesting story that Beethoven composed
the last movement in the twilight as he saw a rider
galloping past through the mist. Perhaps that explains
the notation of the left hand with its implied rhythm
is

brief episodes

which reproduces the

fall

of a horse's hooves. According

to the sketch-books this

rhythm (originally with a string

quartet in mind?) was the germ of the movement.
Every four-bar strain must be taken as a unit with the
emphasis on the third bar, as is confirmed by Beethoven's
own expression marks (sfz* cresc. dim.}. The form is
sonata form:

second subject, development,

to play the move
only Allegretto a light mist should

first subject,

recapitulation and coda. Be careful not

ment

too fast. It

is

whole scene in spite of a few passionately excited

passages. Beethoven only wrote j^ twice in the movement.
veil the

Sonata

in

E flat

major, Op. 31, No.

otherwise upon me
works this sign!' yet here, too, the first movement
begins away from the tonic chord.
For me the whole work has a feminine psyche, tender,

One

is

inclined to exclaim:

'How

supple, fiery, quick, changeable, rather capricious, even

moody. The tempo must be determined by the passage

1

Quotation from Goethe's Faust, Part

75

I.

FIFTH LECTURE
with the twelve demiseiniquavers in the second subject
group. Reinecke already demanded that the accent in the
variant of the theme (bar 520) should come on the first
note

The hand should be lifted off every time.

The form of the movement is easily discerned.
The second movement, Allegretto vivace^ is sometimes
regarded
the case,

as a substitute for a

slow movement. That

is

not

it is rather the quiet, cantabile Minuet which

follows that takes the place of a slow movement. Despite
the vivace^ however, the tempo should be slow enough for
the demisemiquaver upbeats in bars 45 ff. to be audible

after the semiquavers in the right hand. Nor should a

.graceful, singing line be lacking in the opening theme of

the right hand.

The

sforzandos should only be relatively

loud. The form is sonata form. Owing to the change of
key, Riemann describes the passage from bar 43 onwards
as a second subject.

To

my

new idea already

in F major. Consider

mind, the

enters with the previous fortissimo

able technique is required in the left hand. Tiny,
light

lower-arm movements seem to help here the main thing

is to be absolutely loose. The
change of fingers in the left
hand in the closing theine must be practised. Anyone who
heard d' Albert play this piece will not forget the parlando,
5

the charm, the airiness of his playing

.night's-drfeam music by Beethoven.

The Minuet

warm and

midsummer-

intimate, and the Trio must

be phrased with deliberation. It inspired Saint-Saens to
write a set of brilliant and witty variations for two pianos.
is

THE SONATAS,
The

last

OP. 49

movement, in sonata form, provides the

virtuoso with a rewarding tiask. The

opening is, as it were,
the consequent of a non-existent antecedent. It starts off
twice before it decides to be a real
beginning. Both the
and
the
of
the second subject
beginning
accompaniment
in the left hand should be played in a
light non-legato
style with detached fingers.
The appearance of the dominant of B flat major in bar
34 gives me the impression of a second idea more
strongly than the actual second subject, since the latter
merely reproduces the rhythm of the first. Everything
must be exceedingly light and airy in this movement, and
one's enjoyment of playing, of
having a technique % must
vie with the temperament and rhythmic verve of the
music.
c

The Sonatas, Op. 49

The

sonatas, Op. 49, which are also called Sonatesfaciles,

are often thought to have been composed in an earlier

period, or to have been intended as exercises for amateurs

whose technique was not very advanced. No doubt Beet

hoven may have gone back to early works as he can be
shown to have done in the case of the sonatas, Op. 2$
the well-known Minuet of Op. 49, No. 2,, goes back to
the Septet, Op. 20. And as for Beethoven obliging an
amateur; it would be altogether wrong to imagine him as
a sort of Olympian god. He was not above
taking an
occasional hint from others, as is shown by the flashy
violin part of the Sonata, Op. 47, written with a view to
the style of Bridgetower, or by the easy piano part of the
Triple Concerto, written for the Archduke Rudolf. It
77

FIFTH LECTURE
would be wrong, however, to relegate the two sonatas to
Beethoven's youth and dismiss them as unimportant.
They contain a few characteristically late features such
as the transfer of the melody to the left hand in the
recapitulation of No. i, and the coda of the same
movement.

Sonata in
The work consists

minor, Op. 49 No.

,

two movements. The

of

first is

in strict

sonata form, the second is called a Rondo. The episode

in B flat is enclosed, however, by a little paragraph in

minor with semiquaver accompaniment, probably in

tended to prepare for the key of B flat. This modulation
is unnecessary when the episode returns in G major, and
is

therefore omitted.

Sonata in
Here,

too,

the

first

major, Op. 49, No. 2

movement

is

The
The well-known

in sonata form.

brief.

is

remarkably
lively little middle section which is omitted
in the recapitulation. The Trio in C major is on the short
side. A comparison with the Septet, Op. 20, is instructive.
development

Minuet has a

Sonata in

C major,

Op. 3}

This sonata was dedicated to Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, Beethoven's first patron in Bonn where the Count

7*

SONATA IN C MAJOR,

OP. 53

was in the

service of the Elector Maximilian, Beethoven's

Beethoven left Bonn in 1792;, Count
employer.

When

Waldstein wrote in

his autograph-book: 'Mozart's

genius
the
death of his ward. In the inexhaus
mourning
tible Haydn he found a
refuge, but no employment. is still

Through unremitting industry you shall receive Mozart's

spirit from the hands of Haydn.'
puzzling that there is no evidence of any further
contact between the two men up to
1805/4 when this
sonata was composed. In any case, Beethoven did dedicate
It is

one of

his

most important works to the Count

as a

token

of gratitude.

The work is possibly the most pianistic of all Beet

hoven's works. It belongs to the series of works from
Op.
50 to Op. 60 which represent the consummation of his
art.

Everything contents, form, presentation, the pro

portions of the movements and their interrelation com
bines to form a perfectly harmonious whole. Later works
reveal further developments and achieve
greater heights
in one or other respect but as far as the
perfect balance
of all the requirements is concerned the works between
Op. 50 and 60 represent the summit.
The French call this sonata L'aurore, and the title
suits it very well. The first movement in
particular has
the radiance of dawn, an 'aura' which reminds us of
Goethe's *Ganymed'$ and perhaps it is more than a
coincidence that a bird-call in Schubert's setting of that
poem repeats exactly a certain figure in this sonata. But
even without any such poetic interpretation, the work is
obviously a masterpiece on its purely musical merits. It
is remarkable for the
way in which logical development
and organic construction produce just the right emotional
effect.

79

FIFTH LECTURE
Let us look more closely at the first movement. It is
important to realize how novel, for the period in which it
was written, was the introduction of B flat major as early
as the fifth bar in a C major work. This B flat is the subdominant of F, which is the sub-dominant of the tonic.
But perhaps Beethoven's main concern was with the
chromatically descending bass which moves from C to G.
The harmonic ground-plan in the exposition is deter
mined by the attainment of B major, the dominant of
E major, in which key Beethoven introduces the second
subject. Once again a case in which the second subject
appears in the key a third above that of the first subject.

A figurated subject brings pianistic delights which lead to

the theme of the codetta. This is not easy to play if the
crescendo and the subito piano are to sound
emotionally
justified.. The crescendo ought perhaps to be combined
with a slight broadening, tempo primo
returning at the
It
is
this
p sign.
passage which gives us the key to the
correct tempo, which is usually taken too fast, thus for
feiting all the poetry of the small notes (3rd and 4th bar).
Th magnificent development, which leads us first of
all into deep, mist-shrouded
ravines, gradually moves to
wards the pedal point on G above which the sun rises
with a thundering roar. In its way, this seems to me an
.

exact anticipation of Faust's

Monologue from the second
work.
of
.Goethe's
part
A difficult juncture are the bars marked with pausesy
jusl; before the end, with their crescendo and piano. subito t
Observe that the ritardando is .written out in note^ values
the second time, and the same formula extended
by an
additional ritardando the third time. But above
all, we
must recreate the psychological impulse behind this three
fold hiatus with its alternation of A and A flat.
,

80

SONATA IN C MAJOR,
is

OP. 53

The second movement, which is entitled Introduzione,

a substitute for the piece in F major which was origi

nally intended but

which Beethoven published separately

the Andante favori. Possibly his friends' objection that

the movement was too long was the reason why he
dropped it. In any case, we cannot, at this time, conceive
of a more apt preparation for the Rondo than this
Introduzione. It is likely that the E of the left hand in
the second bar was intended to be played an octave lower.
Although Beethoven used keyboards with a very extended
upper range from Op. 55 onwards, the last note in the
as

bass

was F r

The

last

movement

is

a theme montagnard.

The

first

very important. The pedal-sign over the

first eight bars can only be carried out with- some cun
ning on modern pianos, yet it makes an essential contri
bution to the theme echoing from the mountains'. An
extreme pianissimo in the right hand and a slight
vibrating of the pedal will give the effect the composer
had in mind. In form, the movement is a strict Rondo,
its only irregularity being the brief suggestion of the third
episode before the first in A minor.
The trill against the theme in the right hand should be
executed continuously. Only where the melody plunges

in the left hand

is

'

a brief pause necessary. The tempo will be

determined by the need to keep something in reserve for

into

its

is

the Prestissimo and by the clean execution of the semi

quaver triplets in the third episode in which the hand
should be kept very relaxed. In a word, do not take the

movement too fast.

The fact that the Prestissimo

reminiscent of the duet

O namenlose Freude from Fidelia suggests the kind of
execution required. The octave scales should be played

81

is

FIFTH LECTURE
which is often almost impossible on heavy
Try playing the first octave very firmly. The

glissando,

pianos.

modulatory section of the coda with its trills calls for

loving devotion. In accordance with its bright, silvery
C major tonality the whole work will come off best on a
light piano with a bright tone.

82

SIXTH LECTURE
Beethoven's Instruments

When

I try to

imagine the conditions which Beethoven

encountered in Vienna when he arrived there in 1787 and
when he returned there later on, I cannot help comparing
them with the situation today when artists find in most
large houses an up-to-date radio and record player but
more often than not a totally untended piano. Admittedly,
it is

than
days,

much
it

cheaper to buy a modern record player today

was to buy a piano in those days. In his
young

Beethoven would have found an occasional spinet

and harpsichord in

his friends

houses since people only

acquired pianos very gradually. We know that Beethoven

was given Walter, Broadwood and Erard grand pianos
and that he owned Graf and Streicher grands. In letters
to friends he waxed enthusiastic about the new invention
of una, due, tre corde, and illustrations of his pianos show
to six pedals.

The compass

of his keyboards varied a

great deal. Especially in the second half of his life he made
alterations in his works which take into account the ex
tended compass of the later instruments. But there are

up

still

many

passages

where

a transfer to the

may mean

now

cus

tomary higher register

sacrificing beauties
which arose from. Beethoven's having made a virtue of
necessity. To make up for a literal transposition that was
not possible for Him he often invented characteristic turns
of phrase which it would be a pity to sacrifice. In the lower
registers, too, there are now possibilities which were not
available to him, but downward transposition and octave-

SIXTH LECTURE
doubling are not always an improvement. Such matters
to be handled with good taste and great discretion.
The ear must always be the ultimate judge.

have

Sonata

in

F major,

Op. 54

Despised by some and ignored by others, this sonata

is

treated as a stepchild. Unjustly, however, insofar as it is

a product of the mature Beethoven and his features are

unmistakably present in it. The first movement of the

work, which was composed in 1804, is remarkable for the
abruptness of the second main idea in octaves. Many
people criticize this for being a typical expression of Beet
hoven's offhandedness. I am inclined to think that we
should somehow adapt this second subject to the first
which is, after all, entitled In tempo d'un Menuetto. We
shall be more likely to establish the unity of the move
ment if we do not turn it into a mere clatter of octaves.

The form is A B A B Coda

The second movement,

(A).
^4llegretto^ is a piece

which,

if

well played, can easily hold its own alongside the last
movements of other early sonatas. The fact that only one
idea is developed in uninterrupted motion is made up for

by the wealth of modulations and the charmingly

tic

sounds

it

produces.

The

first

pianis-

part should be repeated,

omit the second repeat. One may imagine

oneself on the bank of a river which passes by in changing
but
patterns, long, calm waves alternating with eddies
the element of water, the symbol of ever-renewed life, is
as directed 5 I

always present.

*4

o
o

o
k

SONATA IN

Sonata

in

MINOR, OP.

57

minor, Op. 57

study this magnificent -work we cannot fail to

realize that we are confronted with one of the greatest
peaks in the history of the sonata and that a player must
have attained maturity to present a clear picture of it to
the listener. Technical mastery must be complemented by
the ability of unifying its vast outlines by highlighting
each climax. Much wrong is done to this sonata, and one
need only ask a pianist to -write down the opening bars
from memory to see how few have an accurate knowledge

When we

of the work.
The sonata appeared in 1807 but the sketches go back
as far as 1804. As to its inception, Ferdinand Ries records
that he once accompanied Beethoven on a walk in stormy
which Beethoven hummed and sang the
weather

during

whole time; on arriving home, he improvised for hours

on end and then sent Ries home apologizing for not
having given him a lesson that day. Beethoven had the
manuscript of the work with him when he was asked in
Gratz to play for the French general for whom Count
Lichnowsky was giving a reception. Beethoven refused to
marched in),
appear before the French (who had just
the
went off in anger and, with
manuscript in his hands,
His friend Marie Bigot
got caught in a sudden downpOLir.
in the
played it from a manuscript that had been soaked
rain. The work was dedicated to Count Brunswick, the
brother of Beethoven's beloved Therese Brunswick,
It is important to find the right tempo. Usually, the
four groups of triplet crotchets
12/8 is turned into
whereas what is required is the distinct playing of eacl

SIXTH LECTURE
of the twelve quavers. In this work every note is so sig
nificant, so related to the whole, that any indistinctness
will lead to the gravest errors in interpretation. The
tempo should not be the kind of race into which players
-

are sometimes misled

by the

title

Appassionato, for -which

Beethoven himself was not responsible, though it was

probably invented in his lifetime and is quite apt. I do
not see the point of slowing down on the appearance of
the second subject though it is advocated by some dis
tinguished editors 5 after all, the second subject is merely
a transformation of the first. You should continue to play
in the tempo at -which you play the first three quavers. In
view of the importance and the difficulty of deciding on
the right tempo it may be well to follow the example of
some great artists who, before they begin, make a point
of recalling some characteristic theme about the tempo of
which there can be no question (such as the horn-motif
of the Ninth). In this case, the third subject in A flat
minor (bar 51), which Riemann calls the epilogue', is a
good theme to bear in mind. I find the power of this new
idea too compelling to think of it as a mere epilogue. 1
That the repeat of the opening in G flat (bar 5) must sound
different from the beginning itself is obvious; pp and a
lead by the left are indicated.
c

All appoggiaturas should, of course, come on the beat.

habit of writing out or even thinking out trills in

The

exact time

is

pedantic.

Trills

and ornaments such

as

mordents and appoggiaturas are a test of the player's own

judgement. A trill is any number of repetitions of two
notes: how many should be left to the player to decide.
The same applies to pauses: they should not be calculated
1

Riemann's epilogue is the transition between

the second subject proper and the codetta. P.H.
Strictly speaking,

86

SONATA IN

MINOR, OP.

57

They are interruptions of the rhythmic pulse

various
have
and
causes, meanings and effects. If the
length of a pause were to be measured, its aim, namely the
suspension of counting, would be denied. Feel them,
don't count them!
The transition to the development is effected by the
enharmonic change from A flat minor to G sharp minor;
the latter is the relative minor of B major which is the
dominant of the ensuing E major.
The following phrases containing trills should be
in advance*

orchestrated in different colours. Ways of obtaining this

are round or flat fingers, accenting the upper or lower
or soft pedal. At
parts, the use, or omission, of the pedal
the close of the rising figures in bars 219 if. the rhythm
'

should be well articulated:

ft

The

n;

flat

.?

il
1

in bar 228 should be played with the right

hand.

The

fact that audiences

have been known

after the fortissimo chords in the

Piti.

to applaud
allegro of the coda

a sign of their ignorance but psychologically interesting.

In spite of Beethoven's direction to keep the pedal down,

is

the fortissimo F (bar 257) should be

reduced, with the help of the soft pedal, to a volume which
allows the melodic line to come through clearly.
The second movement in the solemn key of D flat
is in variation form. Notice the Andante con moto

the

last bars after

major

SIXTH LECTURE
but remember that this refers to the quavers, not crot
chets. Most difficult is, perhaps, the first variation where
an exact alternation between quaver chords and rests in
the right hand is confronted with the perfect legato of
the syncopated bass. In the subsequent variations the
music rises to ever grander heights. The demisemiquavers
must be played expressively, though lightly and tenderly.
The ff which is printed in most editions at the climaxes
of the third variation

be eschewed. The

is

not authentic* All brilliancy

last

variation becomes calmer

The penultimate

must
and

with the diminished

seventh, really belongs to the previous bar (bar 95). The
D flat in the treble of bar 96 should be played as a

calmer.

melody-note

bar,

/TV

In the autograph, the arpeggio sign of the last chord

applies only to the left hand. The unbroken touch of the
right hand gives this chord its piercing intensity. The
terrible relentlessness of the following bars should be ob
tained by stabbing at the keys with a fixed wrist.
.According to Riemann, the last movement is in sonata
form. I rather regard it as a Rondo whose first episode in

minor, though

it

opens with the rondo theme, goes

in a different direction. After the double-bar the

off

theme

comes back in a strange harmonization and then gives

way to

a second episode in

flat

88

minor.

SONATA

IN F

SHARP MAJOR,

OP. 78

important to stress the anxiety inherent in this

subject. Beethoven's instruction to repeat the long section
after the double-bar is odd. It is never complied with, but
anyone who has the necessary stamina should try it,
taking the tempo allegro ma non troppo as directed and
holding back his final reserves of strength, and this
applies to the whole work
seeing that the whole body is
relaxed even in the greatest bursts of fury.
And so we leave this work, awestruck by such creative
power. His first encounter with it must be an unforget
table experience for every musical person.
It is

Sonata

in

F sharp

minor, Op. 78

Beethoven himself stoutly championed

this sonata against

the claims of the more popular ones.

The

dedication to

Therese von Brunswick suggests that a great deal of deep

personal feeling went into the work, so much so, indeed,
that Reinecke thought it should always be played in
private. I would not myself attribute the composer's
championing of the work to such purely personal reasons,
nor to the proverbial fondness of parents for their less
successful children but rather to the fact that it repre
sented a

new

Everything is in a state of flux here,

and allusions appear throughout the
work, though there is never any direct imitation; every
thing is homogeneous, yet everything is different. There
is a
meaning in every note which we feel but cannot ex
plain. For me, the eighth bar of the Allegro is a concentra
tion of the two introductory bars thus, one may safely
consider the Adagio the first subject. In the second move
ment we have the picture of a happy love, caressing and
style.

cross-references

89

SIXTH LECTURE
conversing, until the piece ends with loud rejoicing-.
form is A A B A B and Coda (derived from A).

Sonata

in

The

major, Op. 79 (Sonatina)

'Sometimes even Homer nods', one is inclined to say in

regard to this harmless little trifle which is usually and
rightly called a Sonatina.
But it is possible to extract poetry from this landscape
picture with its cuckoo calls in variegated keys. The Presto

The

dolce in bar 67 proves

that the harmonic changes of the cuckoo-calls do not
coincide with the four-bar phrases, in spite of the p sign
alia tedesca

is

a real presto.

of the bar before.

The new

four-bar phrase begins every

time at the corresponding place. The leggier mente in bar
12, and the end of the first movement, should be played
lightly

and playfully.

The second movement has a melancholy air, of the

kind expressed in Goethe's 'Schafers Klagelied'. The
first, fourth and seventh quavers of the bass-line should
be somewhat accented*
The last movement, in rondo form, reminds us of the
counter-statement to the first subject in the last move
ment

of the

major concerto. The

minor, the second in

Sonata

in

first

episode

is

in

major.

E fiat

rnajor, Op.

This sonata was dedicated to the Archduke Rudolf, Beet

hoven's pupil in composition, and it bears the autograph
title: 'Das Lebewohl. Bei der Abreise S. KaiserL Hoheit

SONATA IN E FLAT MAJOR,

OP. 8iA

des Verehrten Erzherzogs Rudolf. Wien, am 21.

May
1809.' Beethoven was indignant when the publisher
Breitkopf, with an eye on the international market, pub
lished the sonata with the French title Les ^4dieux. At

the time, a wave of patriotic feeling was

passing through
the land. Beethoven was caught up in it and it led him to
the use of German tempo directions and of the term
Hammerklavier. During the occupation of Vienna by the
French the Archdtike had to leave the city, and Beet

hoven wanted to express his feelings of friendship to

wards his most distinguished patron. Later on, incident
ally, he reverted to Italian in his tempo directions.
-Thanks to the breadth of Beethoven's emotions, the
grief of parting and the joy of reunion have acquired a
universal

human reference and application in this

sonata,

which is an example of the kind of programme music of

which Beethoven himself said (referring to the Pastoral
Symphony) Not painting, but the expression of feeling/
In this sonata, too, we find the interwoven style which
we have already met in Op. 78. Once again, everything
is so interrelated that it even is doubtful where the second
*

subject begins: if it is in bar 55 (bar 19 of the Allegro)

then neither of the themes begins in the tonic and the
treble is an inversion of the main subject, but
it

perhaps
the espressivo passage of bar 50 (bar 34 of the
Allegro)
which repeats the main subject note for note: we meet
the three notes of the introduction everywhere. The
clear B flat major in bar 50 is more of a quiet contrast
to the main theme than bar 355 most
likely, this is the
second subject proper. That Beethoven used the notes
G F E flat with conscious intent in the Allegro sub
ject is shown by the tenuto mark in bar 18.
The coda is particularly tender and poetic.
hear
is

We

91

SIXTH LECTURE
the posthorn vanishing in the distance and the beloved
friend disappearing in a cloud of dust, yet the realm of
absolute music is never abandoned.
The interwoven style also predominates in the second
movement, entitled UAbsence, which recalls the intro
duction to the first movement. It has two themes of
contrasting mood: a sigh of forsakenness at the beginning,
and then a consoling cantabile with the left hand enter
ing somewhat rudely in staccato demisemiquavers: the
staccato should be played in the usual Beethoven manner,
that is, it should be a ringing, not a piercing staccato,
when Beethoven wants the harsh kind he uses the wedge-

shaped staccato sign. Unfortunately this distinction was

abolished by nineteenth-century engravers.
The movement falls into two halves: from bar 21
onwards the first half is repeated note for note in another
key. In this lament, the fingers must become spiritual
feelers conveying the finest tremors of emotion to the
listener's

mind and

heart.

After the introduction to the Finale, which stands for

the first embrace of the reunited friends, there is the
difficulty of giving adequate expression to the simple
triads of the main theme. The movement is in sonata
form. Its technical difficulties, specially those of the left
hand, can best be overcome by using a loose hand and
loose arm. The joy of reunion should not be stifled by too

much

panting and puffing but expressed in a free and

happy

style of playing.

SEVENTH LECTURE
Tempo and Metronome
In connexion with the subject of tempo and the observa
tion of metronome
markings I cannot help remembering
the experience of Beethoven's pupil Ferdinand Ries when
he endeavoured to secure a reprint of Beethoven's
Sym
phonies in London. He asked Beethoven for metronome
numbers, which the composer duly sent to Ries by letter.
The letter did not arrive and Ries asked the master to
send them again. Beethoven metronomized the
sym
and
sent
the
numbers
to
London. Mean
phonies again
while the first letter had arrived and it turned out that
Beethoven had given completely different numbers each
time. When he heard about it he cried: 'Let us not have

any metronome numbers at all!' It is said that when

Brahms was asked to supply metronome numbers for the
Intermezzi he answered: Do you think I'm such a fool
as to play them the same way every
day?
*

'

We have passed through three stages in the question of

tempo. To begin with, there was the objective and

academic attitude which Liszt later ridiculed as pedantic
and Lipsian In the interpretation of Bach, in particular,
<

led to that dry professorial style of

playing which makes
Bach sound boring, and when applied to the other classics
makes them appear to have been constructed with a tape-

it

measure. Yet it is unquestionable that a great deal of

good musical literature has been based on this academic
foundation, and it is certainly more pleasant to hear an
academically correct performance than a babbling and
stammering one lit up by flashes of genius.

93

SEVENTH LECTURE
There followed the Romantic movement, the

late, in

beautiful, delicate child of the Revolution.

Since phases of development in interpretation always
come later than the corresponding phases in the creative
sphere, we reaped what the romantics Schumann and

teresting,

Liszt sowed, beauty and freedom certainly, but also con

siderable licence in the matter of pedalling and tempo as

well as an excess of emotion.

Then came the purifiers: Busoni, Stravinsky, Bartok,
Hindemith, Toscanini. And we interpreters are now fol

lowing in their footsteps. The kind of performance we

aspire to is one that accords exactly with the composer's
intentions, respects the note-values and all the composer's
directions, is stripped of all unnecessary trimmings, but is
not devoid of feeling and expression. Do not let us forget,
however, that it is impossible for the composer to put
everything in the score. Our aim should not be the kind
of pure soil and sterile air in which
nothing will grow.
Without humus, without bacteria, there can be no life
It is all very well to examine the
manuscript with a mag
to
and
see
where
the c of a crescendo
nifying glass
try
begins, so as to perform it in accordance with the text;
one must also have the emotional capacity to shape the
crescendo in the way Beethoven intended. Fidelity to the
score is not enough, vital though it was to correct the sub
jective and irreverent attitude with its plush curtains and
dimmed lights. Let me quote, therefore, what Schindler
said about the playing of Baroness Dorothea Ertmann, to
whom the Sonata, Op. 101, was dedicated:
'She divined even the most hidden intentions in Beet
hoven's works as certainly as if they were in black and
white in front of her.
She appeared to have an inborn
sense of rubato.
She gave a different nuance to the
I

94

SONATA IN E MINOR,

OP. 90

main motif in the second movement of the Sonata, Op*

90,

every occurrence, sometimes flattering and caressing,

sometimes melancholy. In this way this artist was able to
sway her audience.'
at

Sonata

in

minor. Op. 90

The interwoven style again predominates in this work.

Rhythms and motifs undergo metamophorses producing
patterns which differ externally but are inwardly related.
Like the nymph who is turned into a laurel-tree or a
reed, the divine soul lives on within the new form. Thus,
the driving force in the first movement of Op. 90 is the

rhythm

which occurs

over the place, even in the transition to

the second subject and in the second subject itself though
there it loses its anacrustic character, going, as it does,
from a strong to a weak beat. The melodic element
G F sharp of the opening subject undergoes similar
changes, in the second subject, in the codetta and at the
end of the development. Bar 25 results from a combina
tion of the rhythmic element of the main subject with
the beginning of its melodic consequent.
The form is simple. Whether, as Riemann thinks, the
second subject begins at bar 45 is open to doubt. Surely,
the character of the movement does not change until
bar 55, and Beethoven's ritard. before bar 55 and the
subsequent a tempo show that the composer felt that
all

95

SEVENTH LECTURE
new

-was starting at this point. Before the

is a transition skilfully worked by
there
recapitulation
augmentation and diminution, which it is quite difficult

something

to bring

off.

Even though the second movement

is

strictly

commit

ted to its rondo form, the interwoven style is still present

in the developing sections and the coda. It is splendid, the
way Beethoven abbreviates, twists and transforms the
third bar of the rondo theme until the very last bar
where it reappears in its first shape. Such things make us
feel that Nature's laws of organic growth are reproduced
on the spiritual level we are reminded even of the
inoculation of plants by the way a secondary theme is
grafted onto simple, strong, primary material.
The sonata was composed in 1814 and dedicated to
Count Moritz Lichnowsky, the brother of Karl, "whom we

have already met. The Archduke Rudolf made his own

handwritten copy of it. The directions are only in Ger
man. Bulow rightly draws attention to the fact that when
Beethoven wrote 'Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar
vorzutragen' he was thinking of the average pianist's
habit of rattling off all Rondos as if they were Rondeaux
brillants'. The tempo must remain perfectly flowing,
however, and in place of the rather indefinite and in
volved German words a better direction for the many
non-German speaking players would be something like
'

Allegretto oantabile or amdbile.

Sonata

in

major, Op. 101

Apart from the first movement of Op. 109, this sonata is

the last in the interwoven style. The novel incorporation

SONATA IN A MAJOR,

OP. 101

of a fugue in the sonata scheme is not a structural device,

but aims at enhanced expressiveness. That is the great
difference between a Bach and a Beethoven fugue. Just
as in the Ninth Symphony Beethoven thought it neces
sary to introduce the chorus in the last movement to give
even grander expression to his visions than the instru
mental resources of the other movements had enabled
him to do, so in the late piano works he uses the fugue as

the expression of strong, concentrated

shall return to this in our discussion of
emotion.
Op. 106. Here, in Op. 101, the form is still rather openj
but the way one thing grows out of another, the way the
form of the sonata is hidden, as the structure of a tree is
concealed by the foliage, the way the syncopated notes be
come the very pulse of the work all this is quite unique.
The intimate connexion between the movements is
proved by the repeat of the beginning of the first move
ment before the Finale. The whole piece should sound
like a continuous fantasia. This sonata demands every
a

vehicle

for

We

thing: lyrical feeling, rhythm, absorption and virtuosity.

The work is only for mature souls and affords greater
interpretative difficulties than the Sonatas, Op. 109, Op.
and Op. 111.
On closer acquaintance we appreciate how well the

no

Italian

and German tempo

directions

supplement one

another here.

A characteristic of the

first

movement

is

that

any

feel

denied until the coda

ing of fulfilment, of finality,
motif. Everything remains open and undecided. The
development resumes the syncopated rhythm we first find
in the exposition. The best way to bring this out is to
is

take pedal on every strong beat.

The second movemen t, ^4lla Marcia^ should be played

97

SEVENTH LECTURE
rather in the manner of a string quartet. The
indepen
dence of the parts leads to overlappings in the
rhythm,
which are not easy to negotiate within the fixed metre.

The harmonic changes from the

A major,

tonic

and the lower

F major

to the

flat major,
upper third,
third,
which replace the usual tonic-dominant relation, also
contribute an eccentric element. By such means Beet
hoven avoids over-emphasizing the heroic aspect of the

march. His pedalling in the D flat major passage (bar

50)
should be strictly observed. The Trio a canon has a
curtain of two bars, as Riemann calls those introductions
*

'

which do not contain the

fully developed material of the

In
the
subject.
manuscript, Beethoven thought of insert
ing a repeat after bar 10 an idea worth trying. 1
The introduction to the last movement Adagio ma
non troppo should be played with the soft pedal una
cor da. It is faintly reminiscent of certain melismata in
Bach's Chromatic Fantasia. It must never be allowed to
touch the ground of reality, so that after the quotation
from the first movement the worldliness and earchiness
of the finale may be given full vent. The free
fugato of
the last movement behaves very austerely to
begin with,
but veers repeatedly into a mood of pianistic merriment.
The form is sonata form, with the fugue representing the

development.

The

passage in bars 317 ff., where Beethoven seems to

start the fugue all over
again, is typical of the kind of
humour he shows in the late quartets. It is
amusing to
sense the relief of an audience when instead of the strict
fugato, he suddenly goes cheerful again and finishes the
piece in gay excitement.
1

Good

editions,

repeat. P.H.

such

as

Heinrich

Schenker's;

contain

this

EIGHTH LECTURE
Beethoven's Circle of Friends
It

possible to a large extent to deduce the composition

of Beethoven's circle of friends from the dedications of
his works. He dedicated Op. a to
Joseph Haydn but the
is

relationship with him. was more that of pupil and teacher.

The dedication of Op. 7 to the Countess Babette von

was perhaps already a token of manly affection.

In Bonn, Beethoven was on friendly terms with the von
Breuning family which consisted of a widow, three sons
and a daughter. Whilst Frau von Breuning tried to be a
mother to him, and teach him good manners, he became
the intimate friend of the daughter Eleonore and left her
a page from his album on his departure from Bonn.
His great patron in Bonn, Count Waldstein, has
already
been mentioned in connexion with the Sonata,
Op. 55,
which was dedicated to him. It was through the Count's
good offices that Beethoven came to Vienna and gained

ELeglevics

admittance to aristocratic

The Prince
Carl von Lichnowsky and his wife gave him a cordial
welcome, and he lived for a time in their palace. The
circles in that city.

Prince's brother, Count Moritz Lichnowsky, to whom

Beethoven dedicated the Sonata, Op. 90, was also one of
his great admirers. Through the
Lichnowskys he was

received by Count Browne, who became a

champion of
his music; the three piano sonatas,
were
dedicated
Op. 10,
to the Countess Anna Margarete von Browne. Beethoven

was

on friendly terms with the Brunswick family.

Op. 77, and the Sonata, Op. 57,
the Count Franz, and Op. 78 to his sister Therese.
also

He dedicated the Fantasia,

to

99

EIGHTH LECTURE
A

few

of his pupils also

became

close friends.

These in

cluded Ferdinand Ries who later went to England to devote

himself to the publication of Beethoven's works in that
country. He also wrote the Biographical Notes on Beet
hoven's life with Wegeler. Carl Czerny should also be
mentioned. He was the pupil who supplied valuable in
formation about Beethoven's own interpretations in his
pianoforte method. Since Czerny was the teacher of Liszt
the interpretations of these two artists represent a direct
*

line

from Beethoven

to us.

Beethoven made friends with the musicians at the Court

Theatre, including the violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh the
Nikolaus Kraft, and the violinist Georg Hellmes,

cellist

berger and others. Among the singers who made a deep

impression on him were Herr Demmer, who sang Florestan in Fidelio, and the two women Henriette Sontag and

Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient. The latter contributed a

great deal to Beethoven's fame by her portrayed of
Leonore in Fidelia.
The letters to the Immortal Beloved and the meeting
with Bettma Brentano belong to this period. Her lively
spirit, imagination and enthusiasm for Beethoven led to
a freedom in her conversation with him that was rare.
Her main purpose was probably the desire to supply
Goethe with news about Beethoven. She put letters from
Beethoven into circulation of which the authenticity is
doubtful. Goethe himself described his meeting with
Beethoven and summed it up by saying: 'I have never
seen a more concentrated, energetic, fervent artist. I can
well understand how queer this world must seem to him.'
It is not clear how much of what Bettina
says about
Beethoven is true but at least she did have the soul of an
artist and was able to divine what went on in Beethoven's

100

BEETHOVEN'S CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

mind and soul better than many a stickler for academic
exactness. Goethe

and Beethoven did not become great

friends because they were both such
strong characters.
The shrewd, wordly-wise courtier Goethe was unable to
fathom Beethoven's tempestuous nature.
I do not wish to say
anything about Beethoven's
Immortal Beloved' because there was great doubt about
her personality for a long time and the stories that were
fastened to her are too fantastic. But I will mention one
possible explanation: the letter to the Immortal Beloved
was found among Beethoven's effects. It had therefore
never been sent. Is it not conceivable that Beethoven did
not want such a beautiful letter to be lost and kept it for
*

himself?

Beethoven was caused great anxiety by his nephew

Karl and his unsuccessful attempt at suicide. Beethoven
tried to fulfil his obligations towards his family but he was
too ignorant of the world to do much
good. It is well
known that the hard of hearing easily tend to become
suspicious. That may have been the reason why Beet
hoven's circle of friends became smaller as time went on.
His best friends often had to suffer from his suspiciousness. For example, the faithful, though somewhat
pedan
tic Schindler, whose task it was to check the
takings for
of
Fidelia
at
the
Court
performances
Theatre, was accused
of inexactitudes in his accounts.

when Beethoven

called

apologize in person.
Some of his friends

on him

remained

He was
at the

only appeased

Opera House to

loyal to the end. Prince

Lichnowsky would wait patiently in the ante-chamber

when he knew that Beethoven was composing or im
provising within. The older Beethoven became the more
his fame extended and foreign musicians came to visit
IOI

EIGHTH LECTURE
him, often making long and difficult journeys to do so,
but these visits only made Beethoven the more reserved
and withdrawn. At the time of the Congress of Vienna
Beethoven celebrated great triumphs the Empress of
5

Russia instructed Prince Narishkin to present him "with

200 gold ducats in order to secure his appearance at her
house, and he also took part in the concerts of the
Austrian court.
Yet how difficult it is to bring the general public to
realize

what they owe

to the

memory

of

Ludwig van

Beethoven, we are still finding today. For example, it

needed the energetic lead of an artist like Elli Ney, who
is a native of Bonn, to
bring the plan for rebuilding the
Beethoven Hall in Bonn to fruition.
Looking back, one may say that whilst Beethoven's
many friends had some idea of the greatness of his per
sonality and made every effort to understand him, life
the circumstances of the time, the wars and Beet
itself
hoven's own character often made it impossible for
them to give him the kind of friendship he really needed.

Sonata

in

B fiat

major; Op. 106

(Grosse Senate fur das Hammerklavier)

Published in 1819 ^7 Artaria, and composed in 1818 about

the same time as the Ninth Symphony, this is indisputedly
the greatest of the sonatas, a fact which Beethoven him
self expressed in these words: There you have a sonata
which will make the pianists work, and which will be
played in fifty years' time. In fact, it had to wait for
more than fifty years: it was only at the end of the last
102
c

SONATA IN
century that Bulow
in the concert-hall.

FLAT MAJOR,

won

for

it

OP. 106

the place which

it

deserves

'The sonata was -written in dismal circumstances; it is

hard to have to write for one's bread/ is another state
ment of Beethoven's referring to this work. At the time,
the soles of his shoes were so worn that he could not go
out of doors.

rendering of the work

is said to have been the

have
been capable of. He
any pianist might
scored the Adagio for strings, and this work was the last
that he played before his death. Weingartner arranged
the whole work for full orchestra.
In connexion with the dedication to the Archduke

Liszt's

greatest feat

it is
interesting to note that there is extant in the
of
the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna
library
a sheet of music in Beethoven's hand entitled: 'Kantate

Rudolf,

fur Orchester

Rudolfus"

und Chor auf den Text "Vivat,

vivat

which coincides exactly with the opening

of the sonata. This version for choir and orchestra con
'

firms us in our opinion that Beethoven's

mark

of J

158 for the

first

movement

metronome

(and, inciden

tally, also that of the Adagio) is wrong, because too quick.

It is unpleasant even on the piano to perform the piece

tempo. In particular the passage in G flat after the

start of the recapitulation (bar 239) with its rich har
monies
at this

10}

EIGHTH LECTURE
is impossible at this
speed. The listener would fail to grasp
the sequences and Beethoven's direction cantdbile would
be impossible to fulfil. But it would be utterly impossible
for a choir to sing Vivat Rudolfus at this speed.
The main subject, which Brahms imitated in his C
major Sonata, Op. i, contains the essential germs of the
whole movement. To eliminate the difficulty of the
initial skip by taking the first B flat major chord in the
right hand -would mean losing the tension of this mighty
lion-like leap. On the other hand, it is possible to play the
first bass-note with the right hand. Small hands may omit
the D of the right hand on the fourth beat of the first,
and the F on the fourth beat of the third bar. Notice the
pedalling sign from the beginning to bar 4 and the pause
which follows. The surprising D major in bar 57 is the
dominant of G major, in which Beethoven intends to
introduce the second subject. But before this, the hands
must glide and wheel in perfect concord over the angelic
figuration of the transition. The small > signs in bar 76
*

'

33=
and

also in bars 78, 82,

and 84 probably indicate a slight

The trill on the G in bar 106
must be continued without a

lengthening of the note.

and the following bars

break. In bar 172 I play

instead of

which

is

harsher

but seems more Beethovenish to me! 1 Many editions have

G sharp instead of G in bars 210 and 212, in the first
quaver in the right hand.
Yet contrapuntally, the F (contained in all editions) would seem
harsher^ breaking as it does the symmetry of the sequence. P.H.
1

104

SONATA IN
Then

FLAT MAJOR,

OP. 106

follows the

famous transition to the recapitula

tion in which Beethoven writes A
sharp in bars 224-6,

thereby anticipating the B flat in the return of the main

subject. Many people think that all the A sharps
ought to
be A naturals/ which would produce the F
major chord,
the dominant of B flat. If that is so, Beethoven
forgot the
natural before the A eight times. This
assumption is sup
a
sketch.
ported by preliminary
Plausible though this may
sound it seems to me quite possible all the same that
when he came to work on the passage Beethoven intro
duced this crazy, concealed anticipation of B flat
major
5

there are too

many harmonic

extravagances and meta

morphoses in this work to reject the possibility that the
simple cadence of F major to B flat major seemed too

him. In any case, it is hardly a matter of

life or death, and a mistake in the
tempo is much more
serious than an error here.
Nevertheless, this

commonplace

to

passage
the manuscript particularly
regrettable.
After the recapitulation comes the
glorious transition

makes the

loss of

G flat major which is later changed to F sharp major.

The second subject follows, in the main key of B flat.
The coda recalls the original purpose of the work: one

to

can see the congratulators

withdrawing and hear their
cheers dying away in the distance.
The Scherzo which, astonishingly, appeared after the
great Adagio in the London edition, must glide swiftly
past like a ghost. The exact repetition of the notes is
difficult and a matter of
keeping the wrist loose, not of
changing fingers. The Trio, which resembles the one in
the Sonata in E flat, Op. 7, must also
give a feeling of
The
canon
concealed
in the tripletinsubstantiality.
figures of the right hand should not be emphasized but
should merely be allowed to glimmer
through. The

IOJ

EIGHTH LECTURE
is

a modification

of the

Trio

Presto,

2/4

subject.

The great F major passage which covers the whole

paragraph

keyboard

Amazon

according to Lenz, one of the three great

rivers of the piano'. In the coda, the conflict
is,

between B and B

an exciting stroke of genius.

A pause should separate this movement from the
Adagio sostenuto. This twenty-minute colloquy with the
piano is perhaps the most beautiful contribution ever
made to the literature of our instrument. The ^4passionato e con molto sentimento which Beethoven requires
seems to contradict the mezza uoce, but the contradiction
is only apparent, since when we have
something to say
that comes from the depths of the soul, we lower our
flat is

voices to a whisper.

The mausoleum of the

anguish of the world

was Lenz's description of this movement but it is in fact
a passionate argument with God which ends in submis
sion and humility, after the gift of heavenly consolation
has been received. Metaphors and words are only up
setting here, however, and the statement that Music
c

collective

nowhere more applicable.

'Holy peace, how beautiful, how glorious. Here is God,
here rest to serve Him/ Beethoven wrote in his sketch
begins where language ends'

is

book.

The

bar was added by Beethoven at a late stage.

It serves to force the listener on to his knees. I regard the
movement as consisting of two sections, i.e., the whole of
the first part (which includes second and third groups in
different keys) is repeated. What comes between is not a
development but a cadenza in the nature of an improvisa
tion. A coda is appended to the second repeat. Its pas
sionate outcry, with the seven F sharps, demands a break
before the re-entry of the first subject. The subject should
first

106

SONATA IN

FLAT MAJOR,

OP. 106

then be played quite softly and resignedly. The consola

tory passage, with the A sharp pointing to the major y
should be played with particular gentleness. Despite the

new

entry of the

idea in the minor, the resolution

the
end has now taken place. The
transfigures
tenths must be struck together, not broken up. The
first

which

following aid,

*
that

playing the

sharp with the right hand,

better
than an arpeggio, which Beethoven reserves for the last
chord.
is,

The way Beethoven leads

is

movement is one
leading the player away

into the last

of his greatest strokes of genius:

from the sublimities back to the earthly conflict of

the
fugue, foregoing bar-lines, starting four times over and
finally, after the great outburst in A major, attaining the
F, which he had begun with as in a dream, establishing it
now as the dominant of B flat all this is psychologically

magnificent.
It is not possible to analyse the fugue here. The
student should refer to Busoni's consummate analysis in
his edition of Bach. The fugue is difficult to play, cer
tainly, but I believe that Beethoven's intention was not
merely to write a fourth movement worthy of the pre
ceding music, but also to give the pianist a rewarding

needs a great master like Busoni to make us

feel that the piece is well-written for the instrument-

task.

But

it

IOJ

EIGHTH LECTURE
Most pianists regard it as a mere contrapuntal exercise
and many musicians criticize it severely on that account.
intended to be a fine-sounding piano-piece
of great expressive power the thematic work is merely
the means to an end. With all the inversions., augmenta
tions, crab canons, the fugue in D major within the
and the
fugue
Stage on the stage', as Busoni calls it
collapse on the double trills, Beethoven intended to con
vey a great emotional experience. From the ruinous
breakdown of the last page the opening of the fugueIt was, in fact,

'

subject rises like a phoenix and we realize that this leap

of a tenth harks back to the beginning of the -whole

And

despite all the suffering, the circle closes

with a positive affirmation.
In this work, in one creation of the spirit, a mortal man
sonata.

so,

has portrayed and sublimated all the facts of life, its

rigours, injustices, joys, its heavenly consolations, the
temporal and the eternal, the conceivable and the incon
ceivable.

Sonata in

major, Op. 109

Dedicated to Maximiliane Brentano, this sonata was com

posed in 1820 and published by Schlesinger in Paris.

Once

Beethoven reveals a new side of his per

The
work has the charm and luminosity of an
sonality.
old sweetheart met again after twenty years, with the
same noble features but spiritualized and more trans
again,

parent.

The tonal sequence of the movements is Major-MinorMajor. The emotional sequence is Soft-Hard-Soft. The
opening of the first movement is not easy to play: the
108

SONATA IN E MAJOR,
rocking, hovering effect

must be

OP. 109

described' with small

arm movements. Finger technique alone will not obtain

the required effect. The difference between the Vivace
and the Adagio is only apparent. The whole thing must be
one

a good improvisation. Every note

should be illuminated with a golden light.
Bars 12, 15 and 14 are merely a paraphrase of bars 9,
10 and 11* All is melody, not passage-work. The manu
script contains, again and again, the words ligato or
legato in red pencil. The p in bar 9 is only over the right
of

piece,

like

hand. I continue to play forte in the

left

hand, thus:

The development should be played

broken

line.

In bar 48

(9^-

in one long, un
bars before the second Adagio)

the recapitulation begins.

The movement

in strict sonata form, the Adagio

espressivo being the second subject. It takes time for the
is

expression marks to become so identified with the

player's own feelings that they do not appear mere labels

many

but part of an organic and absolutely inevitable whole.

The

chords in bars

7577

are important. Insignificant

though they may appear, they sum up the essence of
what has gone before.

Though the second movement

the time must be

is

marked

Prestissimo^

a real 6/8, not 2/4 in triplets.

Every quaver should therefore be given its full value. The
felt as

109

EIGHTH LECTURE
movement is in sonata form, the second subject beginning
at bar 55. The third movement is in variation form and
repeats the theme
song, at the end.

uniquely beautiful and simple

This concluding repeat should be
played even more tenderly and with the deepest expres
sion. The variations without repeat marks are double
variations. Below the last trill on B, one bar before the
final statement of the theme, Bulow added an F sharp
and D sharp to the melody on the fourth and sixth
quavers. This is not to be recommended: the A should
lead to the G sharp of the theme.
?

this

no

NINTH LECTURE
Beethoven Biographies
There

a great number of
biographies of Beethoven* I
should like to make a few personal comments on some of
is

them. It seems to me that those by authors who knew

Beethoven personally or lived in his immediate circle are
more authentic and alive than those which are mere
scholarly compilations of the facts of his

life

and work.

had access to certain

sources which were not available to his own
contempor
aries. But that is not always of decisive
importance.
Naturally his

The

first

later biographers

writers

who

lived with Beethoven and

may be
considered to have been authentic witnesses of his life
were his friends Ries and Wegeler. Ferdinand Ries was
a highly-gifted pianist and a pupil of Beethoven's in
Vienna. He later lived in London, and in the last years of
Beethoven's life made great efforts to bring him to
London and find good publishers and supporters for his
works. The tokens of gratitude and the material assistance
which he received from London were at any rate a great,
Beethoven on his death-bed. In
co-operation with Dr. Franz Wegeler, a friend of Beet
hoven's youth, Ries published the Biographical Notes on
JLudwig van Beethoven in 1838.
One of the most important witnesses of Beethoven's
life was Anton Schindler. Later on, there broke out a
hitter conflict of opinion about him which was evoked by
JBeethoven's own changing attitudes towards him.
On his death-bed Beethoven himself was asked who
albeit belated, joy to

in

NINTH LECTURE
was best qualified to write his biography as he conceived
it. He nominated Rochlitz. Johann Friedrich Rochlitz was
a well-known author and as editor of the Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung in touch with every aspect of musical
life.

When

questioned about the principles on which a

biography should be based, Beethoven replied: 'Only the
whole truth! ' And in his opinion a biography should not
appear until ten years after the subject's death.
Schindler kept to that and did not publish his book on
Beethoven until 1840. It is true that he was a pedant but
he was nevertheless a genuine friend of Beethoven,, con
cerned with the truth and above all with fidelity to Beet
hoven's musical intentions. One thinks of his pious col
,

Tenth Symphony in whose

to believe, since in their
refuse
existence many people
view a Tenth would have been impossible after the
Ninth. All the same, we do know Beethoven's intentions:
he was aspiring in that work towards a union of absolute
lection of sketches for a

music with religion.

The most important of the later biographers was the
American, Alexander Wheelock Thayer, who devoted his
life and resources to the writing of his work. It was
edited by Hermann Deiters and completed by Hugo
Riemann. Unfortunately Riemann used the work to sub
stantiate his theory of the predominance of subjects start
ing on the upbeatj he also omitted to explain which parts
were written by himself and which by Deiters. A new
edition of Thayer's work would therefore be very
welcome.
For the rest, I would merely like to sketch the impres
sions I have received from the innumerable biographies
which have been written since then.
112

5a
rsj

BEETHOVEN BIOGRAPHIES
The biography by the Russian Wilhelm Ton Lenz,
written in the middle of the last century, is
fascinating
because of the very personal point of view from which it
was conceived. Often over-exuberant, it is full of the true

enthusiasm and imagination which are characteristic of

the romantic period in Russia.
Adolf Bernhard Marx went about his task of
describing
Ludwig van Beethoven's Life and Work (1859) wi^h Ger
man thoroughness and exhaustiveness; his book not only
became the main source of information about Beethoven
to my mother's generation
(1858-1947), but can still
serve the younger generation of
today.

The work

of

Paul Bekker (1911)

is

written in an

essentially modern spirit and determined by a com

pletely different judgement of Beethoven's music.
The most significant quality of Romain RoUand's

writings on Beethoven

is their poetic force and the

Frenchman's insight into Beethoven's artistic personality.
Thomas-San Galli's biography is another beautiful and

distinguished work.

The most important

of the recent works on Beethoven

the book by Walter Riezler. It is not only a
vividly
written biography but also takes into account the
prob
lems of form which occur in Beethoven, His analysis of
the first movement of the Eroica' is exemplary. You will
find here something of the spirit which enabled Wilhelm
Furtwangler to be such a unique interpreter of Beet
hoven's music.
is

The

thematic-bibliographical catalogue compiled by

Georg Kinsky, which was published after the author's
death by Hans Halm under the title Das PFerk Beethovens,
is a compendium of
everything one could wish to know
about Beethoven's complete works, and I should like to

NINTH LECTURE
a reference to this book which
contains exhaustive details about the date of origin, auto
graph, publication, first edition, references in letters,

end

my little survey with

dedication and literature of each work.

Finally, a word about the books which deal specifically
with the piano sonatas: the most important are Karl

Reinecke's book; Theodor Pfeiffer's Studien bei Hans von

Billow:, Jacques-Gabriel Prod'homme's Beethoven's Piano
forte Sonatas-^ and Tovey's great work,
Beethoven's Pianoforte Sonatas.

Sonata

in

A flat

Companion

to

major, Op. 110

Composed in December 1821, without a dedication, at the

time when Beethoven was writing the Missa solemnis.
The childlike simplicity of the main subjects warms the
heart as one remembers all the vicissitudes that the com
poser had to overcome before he could reach this point.
If

we

call

Op.

a masculine work, this sonata is

such descriptions do not go to the heart

111

feminine, though
of the matter. The Adagio with the two fugues fore
shadows the Danksagung eines Geneseiien an die Gottheit from Op. 152. Beethoven writes 'Ermattet klagend'
over the Arioso 'Neue Kraft fuhlend', as in Op. 132,
could be written over the fugues. The style of all three
last piano sonatas strongly points towards the last quartets.
In the first movement it should be remembered that the
primal roots of every rhythm are to be found in breath
ing, the heart-beat, or the dance-step. The only question
is, "what are the rhythmic units? They are the crotchets
here, and by referring the Moderato to them, we shall
keep the tempo from sagging. Yet, in the final bars, every
c

114

SONATA IN A FLAT MAJOR,

OP.

no

note must be given its utmost value. In the fifth bar from
the end the opening subject appears in the left hand.
The movement is in sonata form, with a notably simple
development.
The Scherzo should be thought of in 2-bar strains (4/4)
with the accent on the second bar. The Trio shows that
the whole movement must be taken
fairly steadily, so that
the Chopinesque filigree figuration in the
right hand can
achieve its full poetic effect. The main notes in the left

hand (D

flat, to start with) ought perhaps, ideally, to

continue sounding. In the coda, the chords fall on the
unaccented bars and this gives a pleasantly
comforting
effect to the final F major chord which comes on a
strong

bar.

No

break should be made before the next movement,

Rubinstein used to tie the last left hand F in the Scherzo
to the Adagio.
Care should be taken not to strike the chords in the
left too loudly
during the so-called Bebung (marked by
Beethoven with the fingering 4-3). In the semiquaver
accompaniment of the Arioso the keys should not be
completely released at all: the chords should be packed as
tightly together as possible.
The sanglots intercoupes at the repeat of the Arioso
(bar 116) must be played as sensitively as possible, like
wise the resurgence of the heart-beats in the last
major

chords (bar 132).

The second fugue with the inversion of the fugal sub
ject presents the considerable difficulty of integrating the

rhythmic augmentation and diminution into the context,

and of developing the accompanying figure of the end
from the fugue subject. That the diminution is not
exactly twice the speed of the

first

statement

is

shown by

NINTH LECTURE
Beethoven's own meno allegro and the subsequent piu
moto.
Great intensity of touch and skilful pedalling are de
manded by the high-lying, radiantly transfigured melody
of the end. Any acceleration in the last bars would be

wrong.

Sonata

in

minor, Op. Ill

Dedicated to the Archduke Rudolf, this work puts the

finishing touch to the colossal structure of the thirty-two
sonatas,

and

we

find in

it

of Beethoven's

summing-up

whole nature, a testament of his spiritual world which left

nothing for him to say in the form of the piano sonata.
At least, that is how it appears to us poor mortals.
The two movements of this work symbolize this world
and the world to come. Thus, the relentless figuration of
the first movement in which Beethoven expressed life's
hard struggle should be chiselled out with steely fingers,
whilst the Arietta, which represents the transcendental,
should be played with a touch so dematerialized as not to
seem to be of this world. How is this to be achieved? It is
the spirit that creates for itself the body to dwell in; it is
the idea that discovers the necessary technique. Be com
pletely conscious of the relative unimportance of details
be conscious of the eternal laws that rule the stars, and
then your hands and fingers will become
magnetic and
conjure up a transcendental light from wood and strings.
The first movement, Maestoso, should be begun in the
grand manner. What was said about the dreaded leaps at
the beginning of Op. 106 also applies here. Beethoven
may have been aware that bars n and 12 (upper part)
116
5

'

SONATA IN G MINOR,

OP. 111

contain the upbeat of the first subject of the

Allegro in
double augmentation. On the other hand, I cannot en
tirely agree that there is an affinity between the second
subject and the first, as demonstrated by Schenker

In this connexion, there is also the question

whether the second minim in bar 115 should be E flat
or C. It is true that the harmonization of the two
parallel
passages is different, but I think the interval of the
diminished seventh, existing between bass and treble in
the exposition, is important and should recur here in the
(Riezler).

form of F sharp-E

flat.

The

Arietta in variation form requires a complete

change of attitude on the part of the player. In the first
variation the pedal should be used so carefully that the
cello-like part in the left

The time

hand can come through

quite

clearly.
signatures 6/16 and 12/33, alternating
with the basic 9/16, might suggest that bars 33 and 49
are longer, but the three quaver units always remain the
same, in accordance with the subject whether they are

divided into triplets, semiquavers, demisemiquavers or

hemidemisemiquavers.
The section from bar 106

to 129 between the fouth and

a double variation) with the

fifth variation (the fifth is

modulation to
flat, introduced

by the seven B

flats

in
to

the lower part in bars 112 and 113, should be made

sound like an improvisation, preparing for the great sixth
variation. At the end one should be conscious of the
beginning of the subject and its inversion in the bass. The
tie in bar 161 comes off better if the G is taken by the left
hand.

We have come to the end.

It

117

should have become clear

NINTH LECTURE
by now that Beethoven possessed within himself the
creative power of nature herself. Tremendously subjec
tive though he was, he raised the personal to the level of
the typical and the universal and gave us an example of
how it is possible in spite of material and human limita
tions to reveal the eternal in the temporal.

118

540