Beethoven may well have been born the day before. In those days it was customary to perform the baptism a few days later, due to the strong religiosity of the time, and because the infant could die, as well. But, we've read somewhere that – with all due respect – it is highly unlikely that the parents of little Ludwig decided to baptize him the day after his birth if we remember that Johann, the father, already in those years drowned his sorrows with alcohol and greeted the good times in the same way. So if he did celebrate the birth as usual he was not in a position to celebrate the sacrament the following day.
In short, we are still determining when Beethoven was born. This blog pays tribute to him today on the day he was baptized, in Bonn, in 1770.
Sonatas from Opus 2, dedicated to Haydn
After settling permanently in Vienna in 1792, Beethoven took composition lessons with Maestro Franz Joseph Haydn, then a sixty-year-old celebrity based in London, who from time to time appeared in the capital of the Habsburg empire, to give lessons and visit his friends. But they did not get along well, and after two years Beethoven left his teacher. Later he would take lessons with Antonio Salieri, but he would never forget the old Haydn, to whom the first three piano sonatas, grouped in Opus 2, would be dedicated.
The three sonatas were composed around 1794, almost simultaneously, and premiered in the autumn of 1795 in the salons of one of his noble friends, Prince Carl von Lichnowski, in an evening attended by Joseph Haydn. They were published in March of the following year by Artaria, the Viennese publishing house of Haydn himself.
Sonata Opus 2 No. 3 in C major - Movements
Beethoven borrowed here material from a work of his youth, the Piano Quartet No. 3. Like its opus 2 counterparts, the sonata is broadly conceived, with four movements instead of three, this time adding a brief scherzo as the third movement.
00 Allegro con brio
11:33 Adagio Surprising in its simplicity, one of Beethoven's most beautiful slow movements.
20:23 Scherzo - allegro
23:28 Allegro assai
The performance is by Chilean maestro, Claudio Arrau. Beethovenfest, Bonn, 1977.
