For thirty years, Beethoven and Franz Schubert lived in the same city, Vienna. It is unknown whether they ever met. If they had, they would have exchanged entirely opposite views on access to the publication of their works. While the young Franz would have difficulties with his publishers, at the turn of the century the Bonn-born master wrote in a letter that "I do not sign a contract with them [his publishers], I set my own conditions and they pay me". These are good years for Beethoven, he is thirty years old and a celebrity in Vienna. And very productive. In addition to finishing the First Symphony, in 1801, an annus mirabilis, he writes four sonatas. At times he feels discomfort in his ears, but nothing to worry about.
The group of four sonatas includes the renowned Moonlight and Pastoral. It begins with the lesser-known Sonata No. 12, opus 26, which according to some authors would be the last of his classical period and according to others the first of his middle period. There is no doubt that the master is exploring new territories: the sonata has four movements, they are played without interruption, they are all written, unusually, in the same key -A flat-, and the third movement contains a Funeral March, just like Chopin's "Funeral" Sonata. And if all this didn't add up, none of the four movements is written in "allegro de sonata" form (that which takes a theme, develops it and then recapitulates it) even though the piece is a sonata.
Sonata No 12, opus 26, in A flat major - Movements
00:00 Andante con variazoni
One more novelty. The usual allegro of the first movement has been replaced by a theme and variations, five in all. The only known antecedent of this innovation is due to W.A. Mozart, present in the Sonata K331, that of the famous Turkish March.
09:12 Scherzo. Allegro molto
After the variations, the maestro follows the usual classical sequence of fast-slow-fast movements. The second movement, then, is a scherzo, marked allegro molto. Here we meet again a young Beethoven, very agile.
Funeral march. As expected, there has been a lot of speculation about it, but Beethoven left no trace of who that eroe might have been. Very popular among the Romantics (even today, perhaps: it is the movement we remember most), it was the only Beethoven sonata that Chopin played in public. Its outspoken popularity, moreover, led the master to write an arrangement for wind and brass, which was performed at his funeral.
18:27 Allegro
Against all odds, the funeral march will lead into a brilliant allegro, a brief but impetuous movement in ABA form (A theme, B theme, A theme), with a somewhat dramatic but never too serious B theme. The left hand does not rest in its perpetual motion figurations. A simple coda leads to a finale in which, diminuendo after diminuendo, the sound seems to evaporate.
The performance is by maestro Daniel Barenboim.
