Composed around 1804, when Beethoven was 34 years old and deafness had begun to afflict him severely, the Sonata No. 23, called Appassionata, was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick, the brother of Ludwig’s students Therese and Josephine and, lo and behold, the cousin of his first love Giulietta.
Because of its boldness and novelty, the sonata was a breakthrough in piano composition; in addition to its enormous technical difficulty, it is characterized by the use of the full range of the instrument and the powerful interplay of the lowest notes. It is no coincidence that the Sonata has been written in the key of F minor, being "F" the lowest note on instruments of the time.
The image shows the first page of the opening movement, Allegro assai (quite fast). Obviously, the red circles are mine and not Beethoven’s. With them, I wish to highlight the use in this Sonata of the musical motif that would make Beethoven well known in the following centuries: the famous "ba ba ba boom", which some years later he would employ to open his Fifth Symphony.
The first time the motif appears is at 32 seconds into the piece, on the lower notes. It reappears, tempestuously, some minutes later to return towards the end of the movement with dramatic intensity.
The Brunswicks met Beethoven in Vienna in the early summer of 1799, on the occasion of a short trip that they made from his home in a nearby town. Mrs Brunswick considered it was a good idea that the girls had piano lessons with the young pianist, to increase their charm vis-a-vis eventual suitors. Thus, Therese, 24, and Josephine, 20, became students of Beethoven. This was the onset of a long relationship between the maestro and the Brunswicks.
The maestro would always maintain a cordial and very intense relationship with Therese. They used to talk about this and that and maintained a sincere friendship for many years. Whether or not Ludwig imagined something else is not clear.
However, in those years Ludwig was captivated by the beauty of Josephine. Unfortunately for the maestro, it happened that the lady, towards the end of 1799, married a certain Count von Deym, 30 years her senior –an arranged marriage managed by Mrs Brunswick.
But the Count proved to be a complete fiasco. First, he didn’t have as much money as he pretended (or as Madame Brunswick wanted to believe), and secondly, he passed away because of pneumonia only four years after contracting the sacred bond, leaving Josephine a widow with three children and expecting a fourth.
It is likely that at that time Ludwig reconsidered his position. Whilst the marriage lasted, he had regularly taken part in parties and musical evenings at the von Deyms’s home. But when Josephine became a widow, the master of Bonn decided to get a little closer, increasing the frequency of his visits. Then, it might be possible that little by little something that was more than a simple friendship began to grow between them.
...to be continued...
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