[music] Again, this sonata is the first of the three that comprise Opus 2. For some reason, Beethoven, along with many other composers, often wrote and published in threes or multiples of three. In addition to this set, there are the three sonatas Opus 10, three sonatas Opus 31, three violin sonatas each Opus 12 and Opus 30, the three string quartets Opus 59, and on and on. And usually, the three works within an opus have sharply delineated characters. In the case of Opus 2, the third sonata is the most big-boned and robust, the second a mixture of lyricism and wit, and the first is definitely the most dramatic. I had pledged to avoid generalizations in these lectures, so rather than continue in this vein, let me play the exposition of the first movement: [music] So, already in that 1 minute of music, you can hear the push/pull with the music of the past that continues to play out throughout the work. This opening gesture: [music] is what was known as a “Mannheim Rocket” – it’s named after the local orchestra in Mannheim, which was apparently quite virtuosic. Composers who wrote for the orchestra, creditable but not great composers such as Stamitz, would write these “rockets” – upward arpeggios, which the orchestra would play while making a crescendo. And this gesture was taken up by greater composers, outside the Mannheim school: Haydn used it from time to time, as did Mozart in, for example, his D minor Piano Concerto: [music] and, most famously, in the finale of the G minor Symphony. [music] Beethoven opened this work, AND the first of the Opus 1 trios with a Mannheim rocket, but I can't think of another occasion where he used it, unadorned, ever again. It was, by 1795, if not dated, at least a very conscious “reference” to a musical tradition. What Beethoven does with this gesture, however, is very original, and very characteristic of him. Its first appearance, part of a two bar phrase, has six rising notes. [music] When he repeats it, immediately, it is again a two bar phrase, but without the upbeat, meaning that it is now five notes. [music] In the third gesture, now only one bar, the rocket itself disappears, leaving only the turn which followed it in the first two phrases. [music] …and again! [music] and again, in fortissimo now with a new tail: [music] By continually shortening the duration of the gesture, Beethoven takes music which was very conventional and rather comfortable, and takes the air out of it, filling it with anxiety. Varying the phrase lengths – or the “periods,” as they are sometimes called – is one of the key sources of character in Beethoven’s music. Lengthening the periods can create a sense of spaciousness, or stasis, or in certain cases, of being stuck, caught in a loop; shortening them, as here, is generally a sign of excitement or turmoil. The special atmosphere of this opening is not just a question of phrase lengths, though. There’s also the issue of the dynamics, and the issue of what follows. Within one phrase, Beethoven has increased the dynamic all the way from piano to fortissimo. [music] “Fortissimo” is a dynamic which virtually didn’t exist for Mozart; if I’m not missing something, he used it only once in all of his piano music, in the A minor sonata. So for Beethoven to utilize it within seconds of the opening of his first sonata, that's a powerful statement of his ambition: this music will have unprecedented dynamic, and therefore also emotional range. But what’s even more interesting is what follows this opening: a rest with a fermata. Now, an extended silence – which is what a rest with a fermata is, really – is one thing if it follows a declarative sentence; in that case, it functions as a period, or an exclamation point, or maybe a paragraph break. (Fair warning: I’m pretty serious about this notion of music-as-speech, so you should settle in for a lot of grammar and punctuation metaphors.) But anyway, when a silence follows a question, as it does here [music] the silence adds to the tension. A musical question demands an answer just as a verbal one does, and the withholding of that answer is a powerful way of unsettling the listener. In fact, even after the fermata, the music we get does not particularly resolve what was unanswered before. [music] meaning that the tension is increased with the silence, and then maintained with the music that follows it. Beethoven does this again and again, in a thousand different ways, in the sonatas.