[MUSIC] So if Opus 27, Number 1's innovations are, in a sense, skin deep, Number 2's are extraordinary and rattle the listener to his or her core. This work of course is typically known as the "Moonlight" Sonata, a name which was given not by Beethoven, but by the poet Rellstab. He wrote a number of poems that Schubert set as the first half of his "Schwanengesang" cycle, so I suppose he wasn't entirely useless. But honestly, "Moonlight" is a ghastly name for this piece. It gets the basic affect of the work wrong, and in its dreamy generic sentimentality, it robs the work of its daring, and especially of its terror. For, in fact, this sonata is a brand new conception of sonata shape and probably the most astonishing one yet. It moves from energy suppressed to energy unleashed, from repression to the ruthless expression of something primal. I'm sorry, I'm out of my element here, but I find it impossible to talk about this sonata without using psychological terms. Beethoven's conception of the sonata finale was ever in evolution as discussed. In the case of the "Moonlight," the last movement is the sonata's terrifying id. Now, I may hate the nickname, but I understand fully why this sonata has so captured the public imagination, even if I am occasionally grumpy that it has done so at the expense of many of the other early masterpieces. The first movement of Opus 27, Number 2 is one of the most original and arresting ideas Beethoven ever had. It is also the only movement in Beethoven's entire output I can think of in which atmosphere is, arguably, more important than structure. To clarify, atmosphere is often very important in Beethoven, but it is usually drawn from the structure, from the way one event follows another, setting up expectations, and then either fulfilling or frustrating them. In the case of this movement, the atmosphere owes very little to that, and that is exceptional for Beethoven. I don't imagine this sonata will be unfamiliar to many of you, but it's always better to hear the piece one is hearing about. So here is the opening. [MUSIC] There are many things to be said about this. The first is that surprisingly, and unlike anything in the last two sonatas we have discussed, this is a sonata form. However, it's so obscured by so many different things that I knew the piece for years before I realized that this was the case. I think there are three primary sources for this confusion. First of all, the movement is so compact. Because it's so slow, it takes about five minutes to play. But the whole movement is a mere 69 measures. The first movement of Opus 7 by contrast, 362. What the compactness means for the movement is that between the principal components of the sonata form, there is virtually no filler material. This is highly unusual. Usually there is a bridge between first and second themes, one which is longer than either theme is itself. And usually the second theme is described as a "theme group" because it includes auxiliary material before the arrival of the development. Here though, between the first theme, you know, [MUSIC] and the second theme, [MUSIC] there is precisely one phrase. And as soon as the second theme is over, we are immediately in the development. This is a sonata form stripped down radically, and interestingly, one of the essential elements, or perhaps I should say one of the essential conditions of the sonata form turns out to be space. Ironically, we need secondary events, material of lesser import, for us to focus our attention on the primary ones. The second thing that distracts us from the movement's sonata-ness is that it is so very slow. Very often sonata forms are actually called sonata allegros because that's the norm. Not that a slow movement can't be a sonata form. A reasonable percentage of second movements in the early Classical period were, but this is just so revolutionary as the opening of a work, we are conditioned to assume that it must be something unprecedented, entirely outside of the norm. It is, of course, just not in every way. It fills an emotional function that is totally different from a normal sonata movement, but that doesn't prevent it from being one. The third, and ultimately main issue, is that the movement is monochromatic, though what an amazing color it is. As discussed, beyond mechanics, what sonata form is really about is contrasts, and because both themes, most every measurement of the movement, really, remain in the same haunted character and sound world, the form really remains hidden, and frankly, incidental. A sonata form that doesn't provide us with contrasts, with oppositions, really, it doesn't carry the normal weight of the sonata form. The normal opposition of keys does exist, although in a slightly unusual way that isn't really worth us getting into here. But that doesn't draw our attention, because for every single beat of every one of the movement's 69 bars, the triplet accompaniment remains unchanged, slow but relentless. This creates a remarkable hypnotic effect, but a movement that is hypnotic cannot, by definition be rich in variety of expression. There is another remarkable component to this movement, and that is that Beethoven asks the pianist to hold the sustaining pedal down from start until finish. Now, Beethoven was awfully fond of pedalings that blur harmonies together-- and, in fairness, his piano was able to do this in a far less obtrusive way than ours can manage it-- on Beethoven's piano, the piano simply sustained less, so even with the pedal held down, the chord one was currently playing was just naturally in the forefront. But, regardless of the instrument and of how judiciously one uses the pedal--I had a teacher who used to talk about using half-pedal, and then quarter-pedal, and eighth-pedal, and even [LAUGH] sixteenth-pedal-- keeping it down for that long will inevitably lead to a serious haze of sound. Now I know that plenty of people have described this sound world as being romantic or nostalgic, but I hear this haze very definitely as menace. For me, everything in this music that is not quite clarified--on account of the constant triplets, on account of the pedal--feels dangerous, because it is clearly so unfulfilled. The menace comes a bit more to the fore in the coda of the movement, when the theme that we had at the beginning plunges into the bass. [MUSIC] Even on a modern piano, this sounds quite different from what came before, but again, on Beethoven's piano, the change in register will bring more, more bite, more growl even to the sound than we've had before. The second movement follows the first movement without a pause, and in character, it is just about the most neutral thing Beethoven ever wrote. I don't want to pile on the clichés and poor metaphors here, but this movement is [LAUGH] a bit like the sorbet, clearing our palate--clearing our ears?-- between two of the most distinctive and highly defined movements imaginable. And honestly, the first movement has, in every way possible, messed with our heads. We really need this after it. [MUSIC] This movement, which formally is a very straightforward minuet and trio, feels like the return to reality after some sort of dream state. It's been a long time since I read any Freud, but I suppose that makes it the ego to the last movement's id? The first movement, despite feeling very suppressed, is probably not precisely the superego, and anyway, I should probably dispense with this analogy before I say something that's really spectacularly wrong. Before the last movement, for the first time in either of these Opus 27 sonatas, there was a silence. And how we need it. For what is about to come is truly harrowing. [MUSIC] I cannot think of a movement in the Classical era that is simply unleashed in that way. The last movement of the Appassionata sonata is probably ultimately even more ruthless, more hellbound, but it takes Beethoven until the coda to reach that point. Here, we begin at absolutely full throttle. Again, however iffy my grasp of Freudian psychology might be, I really believe that the reason we are able to launch into this without standing on ceremony is that the last movement is really just articulating something that was barely reigned in in the first movement. This music is, in a perverse way, a fulfillment. Interestingly, this movement is again a sonata form-- but again, with virtually no contrast between the themes. In this case there are two themes in the second group but none of them offers any real respite. Here is the second theme... [MUSIC] And the third... [MUSIC] There certainly are differences between these, but in each, drive is the most prominent characteristic. It's very interesting that in both these movements we have the novel idea of absolute concentration on a specific character. It is again a new conception of the structure of a multi-movement work. Instead of variety within the movements, we have variety between the movements-- the first movement representing one idea, which is addressed by the last movement, which provides resolution by keeping variety of expression to an absolute minimum. It is certainly entirely successful in this case. The piece is wildly compelling, and it shows that by this point Beethoven's focus was much more on the structure of the work than it was on the structure of the movement. Does it perhaps also mean that at this point in his life Beethoven was beginning to find certain conventions of the sonata form tiresome? He abandons it entirely for two sonatas, and then when he does return to it, he does so with these two examples which value continuity more highly than structural clarity delivered by means of contrast-- contrast, again, being perhaps the central feature of the form to begin with. It's unclear because Beethoven did return to more traditional sonata form to often spectacular effect, but these three works do in their refusal to be tied to it or to its norms, form a kind of declaration of independence. That he does so using three very different models-- first four wild children, then four diverse but tamer children, and then this one terrifying trajectory in the moonlight-- that is more impressive still. Whether bound by convention or totally indifferent to it, Beethoven really had an endless supply of ideas. And again, nearly all of them were bloody good ideas. Let's take a short break for a review question.
