Op. 79, 1st Movement: Phrase Lengths as a Source of Humor

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Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Part 3

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Curtis Institute of Music

Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas Part 3

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Welcome to Part 3 of Exploring Beethoven's Piano Sonatas! I'm delighted to launch another set of new lectures of this course as Part 3. As before, this class is meant for people of all levels of experience with Beethoven's music (including no experience at all!). Remember that you are able to watch the lectures as many times as you like, at whatever pace is comfortable for you. As I’ve done with the first two sets of Beethoven lectures, I look forward to meeting with students—online and in person, in various cities. The dates and locations will be posted in the Announcements and Events section, as part of the course content. So please remember to check back there for details. In these four new lectures, we will explore the following sonatas: • Sonata Op. 10, No. 1 • Sonata Op. 22 • Sonata Op. 31, No. 2 • Sonata Opp. 78, 79, 81a The Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation supports Curtis’s lifelong learning initiatives.

Из урока

opp. 78, 79 and 81a

Op. 78, 1st Movement: After a Long Pause, A Sonata Beethoven Loved7:01

Op. 78, 1st and 2nd Movements: Warmth and Humor3:37

Op. 79, 1st Movement: Beethoven, Modest and Unbuttoned4:05

Op. 79, 1st Movement: Phrase Lengths as a Source of Humor5:25

Op. 79, 2nd and 3rd Movements: Sonata Movements as Character Pieces9:33

Op. 81a: The Birth of Program Music for the Piano7:45

Op. 81a, 1st Movement: Le-Be-Wohl7:43

Op. 81a, 1st Movement: Extreme Economy of Gesture…6:22

Op. 81a, 1st Movement: …And a Return to Expansiveness5:31

Op. 81a, 2nd Movement: Conveying Absence through Harmonic Uncertainty9:46

Op. 81a, 3rd Movement: After Melancholy, Euphoriac11:37

Познакомьтесь с преподавателями

Jonathan Biss
Neubauer Family Chair in Piano Studies
Performance Faculty

Things get slightly more surprising in the development, including right at the outset.

(MUSIC)

E Major! (MUSIC)

E Major is the submediant of G Major.

(MUSIC)

Beethoven did go to the dominant in the exposition, but E Major appears right away

in the development, and then sets up camp for a while.

For all its charms, this is genuinely a piece of modest ambitions, so for Beethoven to use

the submediant – the mediant’s cousin – as a major key area in the work

demonstrates that by 1809, this had become a pretty standard practice for him.

Remember, when he first did it in Op. 31 no. 1,

some eight years earlier, it was a real game-changer.

But the appearance of this E Major, the submediant, is still meant to be funny: and it is!

The bars that precede it are shy, halting, and questioning, and then the E Major response,

in forte octaves, is almost absurdly overemphatic.

(MUSIC)

The E Major entrance is a little like a poorly-behaved child on a playground,

shoving the previous kid off the swings, yelling "my turn, my turn!"

The other peculiarity in this development comes in the very next section.

(MUSIC)

This is the music that accounts for the nickname "cuckoo" that is sometimes applied

to this sonata: those two note figures (MUSIC),

they're vaguely reminiscent of the bird calls.

The peculiarity, at any rate, in this section, comes from the phrase structure.

This portion of the development is composed of eight bar phrases –

standard as can be.

But eight bar phrases are typically composed of two four bar components –

that would be the question-answer model.

Or, in a short-short-long model, it might be 2+2+4.

Here, though, each eight bar phrase consists of a 3 bar unit, then a four bar unit,

and then one lone bar.

(MUSIC)

Three bars (MUSIC),

four bars (MUSIC),

and then one at the end.

The rhythm in the piece is otherwise so sturdy – again, it’s a dance, a waltz

or perhaps a country dance,

(MUSIC)

but this oddball organization of the phrases turns it a little gimpy –

another example of Beethoven’s sly sense of humor.

The rest of the development is pretty by-the-book: we get to the dominant, and it takes us home.

I don’t need to get too into the weeds with this charming but slight piece.

I will just mention, though, that like op. 78, this first movement has a second repeat:

Beethoven hadn’t written a sonata with a second repeat for many years,

and now he does it twice in a row.

(MUSIC)

This second repeat serves a very different function from the one in op. 78, though.

In that case, it felt like an act of generosity: extending the beauty of the first movement

a few minutes longer.

Here, it’s another joke.

That E Major transition (MUSIC),

it was already funny the first time around, on account of the E major

being out-of-place and over-emphatic.

In unexpectedly repeating it, Beethoven is just doubling-down on his joke.

This first movement also has a coda – and a delightful one.

(MUSIC)

This coda is a wonderful summation of the movement as a whole:

those gruff, absurd grace notes (MUSIC)

are another example of the unsubtle but endearing humor that permeates

the movement, and then the ending (MUSIC), just vanishes into thin air.

A good comedian never overstays his welcome.

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