[MUSIC] The works we are looking at today are the ones which immediately precede that Sonata Opus 90. Again, they are Piano Sonatas Opus 78 and 81a, the "Lebewohl" Sonata. The third sonata of this period, Opus 79, is charming, but, honestly not that noteworthy. Much like the sonatas I discussed in the last lecture, these works are all experimental. But, whereas in the experimental works of 1801, wonderful as they are, he sometimes seems to be simply throwing the kitchen sink at the sonata, or maybe it's vice versa, in these works we see him point the way, however tentatively, towards the future. Opus 78 is an oddity and a marvel. It was also a work that Beethoven himself loved, along with the Appassionata, it's his favorite of the sonatas prior to the late period. That is surprising, not only because the two sonatas are so unlike one another, but because Opus 78 is in many ways really an uncharacteristic work. Nothing about the sonata is business as usual, and the strangeness begins before the sonata itself begins with this odd question of the Fantasy, Opus 77. There's no hard evidence as to why Beethoven decided to write his fantasy. It is the only work, in spite of two sonatas quasi una fantasia, to which he gave that title. Beethoven did write plenty for the piano beyond the 32 sonatas. But they're typically either variations-- such as the Diabelli, which is really one of his great masterpieces, or the Eroica variations, or the 32 Variations in C minor, among many others-- or they are collections of smaller pieces, like the two late, great, sets of bagatelles. The Bagatelles, Opus 126, in fact are the very last things he wrote for piano. But there are really only two single-movement piano works from Beethoven's maturing: a charming, not-too-consequential polonaise and this, the fantasy. And beyond that question, it really does not resemble any of the rest of his published music. Scholars have often put forth a variety of theories as to the genesis of this oddball work. For me the most convincing theory is that it was conceived as a companion piece for the Sonata Opus 78, much in the manner of Mozart's Fantasy and Sonata in C minor. Really, there are many pieces of supporting evidence. Most obviously at 77 and 78, their opus numbers are consecutive and they were written within the same year. More interestingly their keys are very related. The sonata is in F-sharp major, which is the dominant--again, the closest relative-- of the B major that the entire second half of the fantasy is in. This would not be, in itself, too significant, except that both of these keys are very unusual. In fact, I cannot think of so much as another single movement by Beethoven in either one of these keys, let alone a complete work. And then, there is the mystery of Opus 78's title page. [LAUGH] For a music nerd like me a more fascinating mystery than that of the immortal beloved. On that title page, in the manuscript, in addition to the word "sonata," and the year 1809, Beethoven writes "Number 2." Now, Beethoven had not written a piano sonata in the preceding three-and-a-half years, so the only remotely convincing answer as to what Number 1 might be, is the fantasy. The fantasy is an utterly fascinating piece because for most of its nine minutes, it gives the impression of having been improvised, even though, surely, it was not. Early in life, when Beethoven was attempting to make his name as much through performance as through composition, he was renowned for his ability as an improviser, perhaps even more than for his performance of finished works. This seems odd today, but improvisation was a highly valued skill in that era. There were even public improvisation competitions, a number of which Beethoven participated in and, invariably, won. You can hear this facility in the extraordinary series of cadenzas he composed for his piano concerti, the cadenza being the moment when traditionally the pianist would improvise. Now, again the ones that Beethoven published and thus left for posterity, are surely through-composed, not improvised, but the style remains. And one of the reasons they're so wonderful is that they're able to preserve that sense of in-the-moment creation. And it's not a coincidence that these cadenzas are invariably longer, more harmonically adventurous, and simply more involved than Mozart's cadenzas were. Clearly, the placement and circumstance of the cadenza-- you know, the orchestra finally really stopping and the pianist being invited to invent, to let loose-- this was particularly inspiring to Beethoven. But while these cadenzas, in addition to being great works of art, are fascinating as evidence of Beethoven as improviser, the fantasy is probably the closest we can come to knowing what his improvisations would have really sounded like. It is frequently referred to as the Fantasy in G minor, which is a hilarious notion. This is the opening of the work. [MUSIC] I have now played for you the sum total of the work that is actually in G minor. [LAUGH] It is absolutely typical of the work as a whole, that it begins in mid-sentence, and not exactly a relaxed sentence, at that. The piece is already in search of a key before it even modulates for the first time. The fantasy takes about nine minutes to play, and at about the midway point it does find an organizing principle, this beatific theme in B major on which he writes a set of variations that are, by the low standards set by the beginning of the piece, normal. But before he gets there, i.e., in the first four or so minutes of the piece, he gives us music in at least six different key areas and six different tempi. The subject of this course is sonatas, not fantasies, so I won't use up time by playing all of them. But really, it's well worth hearing. It shows a side of Beethoven that is very often obscured. It's fascinating that brilliance at improvisation was one of Beethoven's many gifts, because it seems so distant from, almost in opposition to, all of his other more frequently cited gifts. Beethoven is known for writing deliberately and doggedly, for taking often very little material and transforming it, manipulating it. He's known for sketching and revising his pieces exactly, really for perfectionism, generally speaking. By contrast, it was Mozart who wrote much more quickly and easily, who had the kind of easy facility that can produce music as required. Beethoven's desire for the material in his music to be worked through, sometimes within an inch of its life, would seem to be the very antithesis of improvisation. But Beethoven is a man of extremes and of paradoxes. Take a look at one of his manuscripts. They're easily searchable online. They look like the work of a madman. Often when I look at the manuscript of a work I've played, I have serious trouble reading it, given the manic urgency of the handwriting. And when he corrected his music, he did so vehemently. I am thinking of the way he crossed Bonaparte off of the Eroica manuscript. Or the really almost violent way in which he instructs the pianist to observe and repeat in the last movement of the Appassionata. He almost tears through the page of the music. As slowly as he sometimes moved, Beethoven was definitely a man in a hurry. But the more I know his music, the more I think that these two qualities, the rigor on the one hand and the free spiritedness on the other, are actually of a piece. Because as we will see in these middle-late and especially in the late works, all of the labor that went into putting together the late pieces actually has the effect of making them seem more flexible, more free. It's much like the technical work that a performer does. Sometimes you want to show the effort. Certainly that's often the case with Beethoven. But a lot of the practice we do is to give the illusion of ease when great difficulty is involved. Beethoven's ability to be formally so precise, even when trying something that has never been tried before may be exactly the reason it never sounds stiff or self-conscious. His experiments sound natural because his understanding of their inner workings is so sophisticated. The yin makes the yang possible. Let's take a short break for a review question.
