Beethoven, Sonata No 17, "The Tempest"

The year 1802, Ludwig van Beethoven was not going through a good time. At 32, his deafness was an undeniable fact, and he decided to confess it to his brothers in the famous Testament of Heiligenstadt, a few rough pages where he asks in pain why this has happened to him, a musician, somehow justifying also the acrimony of his character. It is the year of the composition of the Sonata opus 31 N° 2, also known as "The Tempest".

According to a contemporary biographer, the umpteenth time Beethoven was asked why the sonata bore that name, he replied annoyed: "you should read Shakespeare's Tempest". The strong likelihood is that Ludwig has answered anything, annoyed by the repeated question, for the fact is that the Sonata opus 31 No. 2 has little or nothing to do with the homonymous work of the renowned bard.

Sonata Opus 31 N° 2 "The Tempest", in D minor
The Sonata is in three movements: Largo - Allegro / Adagio / Allegretto.
The beginning of the sonata presents two novelties: 1. It does not begin in the tonic but in the dominant key. 2. Instead of the traditional Allegro, the first chords show, in less than a minute, three different tempi: largo, allegro and adagio.

9:32  Adagio
The second movement, adagio, is the longest of the three movements that make up the sonata. A standard execution lasts about eight minutes, although the score has only four pages (versus ten in the third movement). It is also one of the longest slow movements written by Beethoven for all his piano sonatas. [In the version we are presenting here, at 10:52, BANG! a lightbulb exploded, hence the video title].

16:20 Allegretto

The third movement is an allegretto, that is, a less rapid tempo than allegro (fast) so that the movement must be attacked at a speed that I would dare to define as "fast but not so much." Like the first movement, it is constructed in an obvious "sonata form": theme - sub-theme - development - re-exposure. But in opposition to the first and second movements, there are no introductory arpeggios. The work, written in 3/8 (a little waltz), begins, let's say so, at once. And ends in complete calm, which usually surprises the audience, if you don't know the piece.

The rendition is by the Ukranian pianist Valentina Lisitsa, who besides her outstanding performance was able to manage brilliantly the bulb explosion, at 10:52.

Pietro Mascagni: Intermezzo, from Cavalleria Rusticana

In the field of music, verismo is an Italian opera style that forged its beginnings in 1890 hand in hand with Cavalleria Rusticana by the Italian composer Pietro Mascagni, reaching its highest expression in the early twentieth century. This new style is going to abandon the historical or mythical themes of romanticism focusing on a realistic portrait of everyday life, especially that in which the poorest classes subsist – peasants and workers.

Composed on the occasion of a contest called by an Italian editor, Cavalleria Rusticana was the winning work out of 70 works submitted. Its premiere, in May 1890 in Rome, was a resounding success. That night, its young author, 27, had to go out more than forty times to receive the public's greeting. The following year it was released in London, and shortly thereafter its representations would follow in Philadelphia, Chicago and New York. At the death of Mascagni in 1945, the work had enjoyed a number close to fourteen thousand performances in Italy alone.

Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945)

A single act opera, Cavalleria Rusticana (something like "rustic chivalry", in free translation) is located in Sicily, during the Easter feast. His characters are villagers and peasants who deal with unrequited love and a non-sancta woman punished by a prude society.

The most popular fragment of the work is a prelude or Intermezzo, sung by the orchestra at the time when the characters have left the plaza where they were gathered to enter the church.

The Intermezzo, and of course, the complete work, are both still very popular today. Numerous film versions have been made of it and scenes of its representation were included in the movie The Godfather III, by Coppola. Likewise, in Raging Bull, by Martin Scorsese, an important part of the soundtrack is based on Intermezzo.

The video shows scenes of a terrace, desolate (like the plaza, in the play), on the seaside. This is the Terrazza Mascagni, located in Livorno, Italy, rebuilt after the Second World War and then renamed in tribute to Pietro Mascagni, a native of Livorno.