Beethoven sketched the three piano sonatas of his Opus 10 in 1796. He then composed the three sonatas simultaneously in 1797, and they were published in Vienna the following year. Beethoven had established his reputation in that city as a pianist, but he was still struggling in these years to find his way as a composer: at this same time he was working on his first set of string quartets and would shortly begin work on his First Symphony. The Sonata in C Minor is his first sonata in that key, the key that would call forth some of his stormiest music, and if the present sonata does not fully embrace the “C-minor mood” of the “Pathetique” Sonata and the Eroica and Fifth Symphonies, it nevertheless shows moments of turbulence that look ahead to the mature Beethoven.
We feel this most strongly at the beginning, with its abrupt C-minor chord and jagged dotted rhythms, but this unsettled opening gives way almost immediately to the flowing second idea. The development of these very different ideas is relatively brief, but Beethoven offers a full recapitulation and drives the movement to a firm close.
The mood changes sharply at the Adagio molto, which moves into A-flat major. There is an almost baroque luxuriance about this music: chords sweep downward over long arpeggios, and the melodic line is decorated with turns, trills, and rolled chords. This is the longest movement in the sonata, and the calm closing measures offer some of its most attractive music.
Beethoven defies expectations in the brief finale–instead of the expected rondo, he offers a sonata-form movement, complete with exposition repeat. The movement is built on two ideas: the propulsive opening and a jaunty second subject. Their development is quite brief (only eleven measures long), and Beethoven saves some of his best ideas for the very ending. The music turns very slow (it almost seems to recall the Adagio molto), and then Beethoven rushes matters to a close with a coda that ingeniously combines the movement’s two main themes.
In the Mists
LEOŠ JANÁČEK
Born July 3, 1854, Hukvaldy, Moravia
Died August 12, 1928, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Janáček composed In the Mists in 1912, when he was 58 years old and serving as director of the Organ School in Brno. As a composer he was virtually unknown: a regional production of his opera Jenůfa in1904 had brought him a brief moment of notice, but now he seemed doomed to live out his days as a provincial musician. Success would come to Janáček a decade later, when he fell madly in love with a married woman. That relationship would remain platonic, but it fired Janáček’s creativity: during the final years of his life (when he was in his seventies!) he wrote four great operas, the Sinfonietta, the Glagolitic Mass, and two string quartets–all tremendous music, full of life, fire, and drama. But in 1912, when he wrote In the Mists, Janáček could have no inkling of this: he was nearing retirement, he was unknown, he was trapped in an unhappy marriage, and he feared that this would be his fate.
Some of Janáček’s biographers believe that the title In the Mists is autobiographical and that it refers to Janáček’s belief that–as a composer–he was lost “in the mists.” Janáček had a fondness for enigmatic titles, and we need to be careful not to read significance into a situation where it may not belong, but that suggestion is intriguing.
In the Mists is a suite of four brief movements. The mood here is neither bitter nor angry, but all four movements are tinged with a measure of melancholy. All four are in a general ternary form: an opening statement, a central episode in a different mood or tempo, and a return (sometimes modified) to the opening material. But this music conforms to no set form, and the individual movements are episodic, mercurial in their short themes, repeated phrases, and quick changes of mood and color. The movements do not really require detailed description, but one might note how beautifully the opening Andante establishes the subdued mood, while the Andantino appears to have its roots in Eastern European folksong. The concluding movement may be marked Presto, but it is neither brilliant nor even particularly fast. Instead, with its frequent stops and starts, it feels ruminative and just as enigmatic as everything else in this music. After all these half-tones and indecisions, however, In the Mists drives to a firm conclusion.
Nocturne in E Major, Opus 62, No. 2
FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN
Born February 22, 1810, Zelazowska Wola, Poland
Died October 17, 1849, Paris
Chopin composed the two nocturnes of his Opus 62 in 1845-46: they were the last nocturnes he published during his lifetime. The second of these, the Nocturne in E Major, is particularly lovely and has proven popular with performers and audiences alike. Chopin marks the opening both Lento and sostenuto, and here a supple right-hand melody arches freely over steady accompaniment. The nocturne is in the expected ternary form, though Chopin offers a second theme in the opening section–it presses steadily forward over steady sixteenth-notes in the left hand. The central episode is marked Agitato, though one feels that is an indication more of tempo than character–the music moves firmly along sharply-defined rhythms rather than growing truly agitated. Chopin reprises both opening themes, now slightly varied, and the nocturne fades into silence on a very brief (three-measure) coda.
Polonaise-Fantaisie in A-flat Major, Opus 61
Also written in 1845-6, the Polonaise-Fantaisie is one of Chopin’s final works–and one of his most brilliant. A polonaise is a national Polish dance in triple time, characterized by unusual rhythmic stresses; the fact that it is usually at a moderate rather than a fast tempo gives the polonaise a more stately character than most dance forms. Many composers have written polonaises, but the fourteen of Chopin remain the most famous, and some feel that this distinctly Polish form allowed Chopin an ideal channel for his own strong nationalist feelings during his exile in Paris.
The polonaise is usually in three parts: a first subject, a contrasting middle section, and a return of the opening material. The Polonaise-Fantaisie keeps this general pattern but with some differences: Chopin writes with unusual harmonic freedom and incorporates both themes into the brilliant conclusion–doubtless he felt that he had reshaped the basic form so far that it was necessary to append the “fantaisie” to the title.
The Allegro maestoso introduction is long and rather free, while the first theme group–in A-flat major–is remarkable for the drama and virtuosity of the writing. This makes the quiet middle section, in the unexpected key of B major and marked Poco più lento, all the more effective: a chordal melody of disarming simplicity is developed at length before the gradual return of the opening material. The final pages are dazzling–Chopin combines both themes and at one point even makes one of the accompanying figures function thematically as the Polonaise-Fantaisie winds down to its powerful final chord.
Sonata: 1. X. 1905, From the Streets
LEOŠ JANÁČEK
Throughout his long life Janáček remained a passionate Czech nationalist, committed to freeing the Czechs from German domination. On October 1, 1905, came an event that fired these passions even more deeply. When the Czechs in Brno asked for the creation of a Czech university, the Germans demonstrated against them, and the Czechs retaliated with a counter-demonstration. Troops were called in to quash the violence, and in the process a 20-year-old Czech worker was bayoneted to death. Outraged, Janáček composed a three-movement piano sonata that he titled after the date of that violence; its subtitle has been translated variously “From the Streets” or “Street Scene.”
The sonata was originally in three movements, but at a rehearsal, Janáček–apparently overcome by the quality of works on the program by other composers–stormed onto the stage and, in front of the astonished pianist, burned the last movement. After the next rehearsal, Janáček took the manuscripts to the first two movements and threw them into the Vltava River. He noted: “They did not want to sink. The paper bulged and floated on the water like so many white swans.” This time, though, the pianist was ready–she had made copies of these two movements and saved them. Nearly twenty years later, in 1924, Janáček agreed to their publication.
The two surviving movements are quite short, and both are unified around the same rhythmic and thematic figures. The opening Con moto (subtitled “Presentiment”) commences with a generalized theme-shape that becomes, in the fourth measure, the germinal cell for the entire sonata. All the other themes evolve in some way from this figure. It becomes, for example, the accompaniment to the chordal second theme, and throughout the sonata it is transformed by Janáček’s fluid rhythmic sense–the music speeds ahead, holds back, and seems to be stretched or compressed as we listen. The main theme of the Adagio (subtitled “Death” but originally subtitled “Elegie”) also grows out of the first movement’s central theme. Full of a wild and wistful quality, this movement grows more animated and then subsides to an elegiac close.
One wonders what the last movement was like.
Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Opus 81a, “Les Adieux”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
Beethoven’s relations with members of the nobility were often thorny, but for one nobleman he felt unreserved affection. This was the Archduke Rudolph, youngest brother of Emperor Franz Joseph and a piano and composition student of Beethoven. Born in 1788, Rudolph–though gifted musically–was destined for a career in the church; Beethoven wrote the Missa Solemnis for Rudolph’s installation as archbishop of Olmutz. Rudolph remained one of Beethoven’s most loyal and generous patrons and the composer responded by dedicating some of his finest works to the young nobleman: the Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos, the “Archduke” Trio, the Missa Solemnis, the Grosse Fuge, and three piano sonatas.
The Sonata in E-flat Major, Opus 81a is one of these, and the circumstances of its composition are unusually interesting. In May 1809 French armies under Napoleon occupied Vienna and the Imperial family fled the city. Beethoven remained in Vienna throughout the occupation, and he thought often of the absent Archduke, then twenty-one years old. For Rudolph, Beethoven wrote a brief piano sonata, entitled “Les Adieux,” that is one of the composer’s few program pieces. Rather than telling a story, however, this sonata suggests the composer’s evolving emotional states during the absence of the young archduke. The opening movement–titled “Farewell”–describes Beethoven’s sorrow at the departure of Rudolph from Vienna; the grieving second–“Absence”–his pain over separation from the young man; and the energetic third–“Reunion”–his rejoicing on Rudolph’s return to Vienna.
The composition of this sonata is dated quite accurately. The title page bears the date May 4, while the first page of the first movement was apparently written on May 21, which appears to have been the actual day of Rudolph’s departure. The Adagio introduction to the first movement is built on three quiet descending chords, corresponding to the syllables of the German word for farewell–“Lebe wohl”–and the composer in fact writes these syllables over the notes in the manuscript. Beethoven incorporates this same three-note figure into the opening theme of the exposition, marked Allegro, and this descending three-note pattern will saturate the first movement. The Andante espressivo, in C minor, is indeed expressive music, full of grief at Rudolph’s absence. A more animated middle section leads through a chromatic transition to the brilliant finale, marked Vivacissimamente. This opens with swirling arpeggios in E-flat major, and the main theme of this movement is derived from these arpeggios. The finale is in sonata form, but the secondary material complements rather than rivals this exultant opening, and the mood of celebration continues throughout. Near the end, Beethoven slows the opening theme down, and it seems to creep forward, then plunges ahead to the close.
At fourteen minutes, this is one of Beethoven’s briefest piano sonatas–and one of his most individual. It is a message of affection for a young man Beethoven respected, and the composer inscribed the manuscript with a message full of emotion: “Dedicated to, and written from the heart for, His Imperial Highness.” It may seem strange that a sonata that depends for its main theme on the syllables of the German “Lebe wohl” should bear the French nickname “Les Adieux.” In fact, Beethoven was furious when he discovered that his publisher had given this sonata a French nickname, and he wrote to complain: “Why is this? ‘Lebe wohl’ is quite different from ‘les adieux.’ One says the first only to an intimate friend, alone, the other to a whole crowd, to entire towns.”
Series 2011/12 
