Sonata in B flat major, Op.106 (“Hammerklavier”)

“Hammerklavier,” the nickname inseparably associated with Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op.106, could with equal documentary justification be applied to the Sonatas in A major, Op.101, and E major, Op.109. They too were first published - on the insistence of a composer who at that time preferred good German words to foreign ones - as Sonatas for “Hammerklavier“ rather than “pianoforte.”

The name has stuck to Op.106 presumably because it seems to suit the hammered B flat major harmonies in the opening bars. Certainly, beginning with an upward leap of two octaves and a third in the left hand, the opening gesture is a salient feature of the work. It is crucial to its unprecedentedly massive construction, both for its dramatic effect and the way it draws attention to the all-important interval of the third. That interval is not particularly prominent in the melodic material of the first movement but it does have a profound harmonic influence on the rest of the exposition and the fugal development, where the tonality repeatedly falls by a third - which is how the serene second-subject melody alights on the remote key of B major towards the end of the development, just before the harmonies are jolted back to B flat at the beginning of the recapitulation.

The second movement, a short and dynamic scherzo, echoes this bold opposition of tonalities. Conventionally enough, the outer sections, which are based on a theme of rising and falling fourths, are in B flat major and the more melodious middle section is in B flat minor. But just before the end, at first quietly and then violently, Beethoven confronts B and B flats in naked octaves.

The way out of the conflict, temporarily at least, is a sublime slow movement in the unrelated key of F sharp minor. Interestingly, however, the contemplative opening theme twice touches on G major, as though to catch a glimpse of the serenity already experienced in that key in the exposition of the first movement. After that, the F sharp minor lyricism is still more inspired, the melody poised con grand’ espressione over a syncopated counterpoint in the right hand and a simple chordal accompaniment in the left. As a valuable textural contrast, the second-subject melody alternates between the bottom of the keyboard and the top, the right hand crossing the undulating D major harmonies in the left. Bearing in mind the wealth of material, the development is surprisingly short. The recapitulation, on the other hand, is not. After the return of the first theme, elaborately disguised in decorative figuration, the con grand’ espressione passage reappears not in the expected F sharp minor but in D major. The anomaly has to be resolved in the coda, which functions as an abbreviated second recapitulation in F sharp vacillating between minor and major and ending in the major.

The massive contrapuntal structure with which the work ends is headed Fuga a tre voci, con alcune licenze (“Fugue in three voices, with some liberties”) - which is not so much an apology for breaking the rules as an advertisement. “To make a fugue requires no particular skill,” Beethoven said. “In my student days I made dozens of them. But the imagination wishes also to assert its privilege, and today a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form.” But before demonstrating his modern fugue, Beethoven crosses the gap from F sharp major Adagio to B flat major Allegro risoluto in a visionary transition, the tonality once again falling repeatedly in thirds.

In its initial leap up a tenth - an octave and a third, topped by a trill -the fugue subject is clearly related to the opening theme of the sonata. The course it pursues, in a construction as complex as that of the Grosse Fuge, is not so clear: it is as much a virtuoso performance for the listener to follow it in detail as for the pianist to play it. Broadly, the movement is divided into two unequal parts by the intervention of a restful (though still fugal) episode in D major, where the motion in semiquavers stops for the first time.Towards the end of the second part of the movement the fugue subject, which has been presented by now in all kinds of backwards and inverted version, makes a climactic last appearance in its original form high in the right hand. The three-part texture is abandoned for the first time in the coda, a free and dramatic fantasy on the trill which has sustained the whole massive construction.

“I am now writing a sonata which is going to be my greatest,” Beethoven told Czerny as he was working on the “Hammerklavier” in 1817 or 1818. In fact, although he was to complete three more piano sonatas generally considered to be among the greatest of their kind, not even he surpassed the monumental achievement represented by the Piano Sonata in B flat major Op.106. No other composer has surpassed it either. If there is a piano sonata bigger than the “Hammerklavier,” it falls short of that work in the quality of the thinking behind it. If there is a piano sonata equal in quality, it fails to measure up in stature. In terms of sustained inspiration, the “Hammerklavier”  – which broke its mould in much the same way as other late works like the “Choral” Symphony, the “Diabelli” Variations and the Missa Solemnis broke theirs – has no serious rival on its own terms.

While Beethoven would probably not be surprised to find that comparatively few pianist are courageous, even now, to accept the challenge represented by his greatest sonata – it was not much played in his own day – he surely would be surprised by the “Hammerklavier” title that has attached itself to it. Between 1817 and 1821, preferring to use the German word for the instrument rather than the Italian “pianoforte,” he published three sonatas for the “Hammerklavier.” But of the three (Op.101, Op.106 and Op.109) only one of them has attracted “Hammerklavier” as a nickname – which is illogical but not without a crude kind of relevance. No other Beethoven sonata gives the piano such “hammer.”

Allegro

The percussive opening of the work, as the pianist’s left hand bounces up from low down the keyboard to loud three-note chords in the middle and is joined by similarly emphatic four-note chords in the right hand, is a striking example. It is more than just a dramatic beginning, however. While presenting the main theme of the first movement, those vital first bars also offer clues as to how the rest of the work will proceed and how the whole vast construction will be held together.

Although this opening Allegro is dominated by the percussive aspect of the main theme, often represented by a little rhythmic figure derived from the initial upward bounce, that is by no means the only kind of material presented here. Within just a few bars the articulation melts into a supple legato and the other main themes, particularly the serenely melodious chorale introduced high in the right hand and repeated over a long trill towards the end of the exposition, are lyrical rather than aggressive in character. Every subsequent appearance of the chorale – in the middle of a development section devoted otherwise to a vigorous fugato treatment of the opening theme, at the end of the recapitulation and shortly afterwards in the coda – most effectively offsets the percussive element and finally even mitigates it a little.

Scherzo

The Scherzo – the last to occur in Beethoven’s sonatas – is the shortest but not the least eccentric of the four movements. Based on a brisk four-note theme, it resembles the Allegro in that it offers the contrast of more sustained melodic material, eerie rather than serene though it is in this case. But there is nothing even in the first movement that equals in violence the extraordinary passage that leads from the middle section to the return of the four-note theme.

Adagio sostenuto

But for the opening bar, which was added at the last minute before publication to echo a thematic element fundamental to the rest of the work, the Adagio sostenuto would seem to exist in a world of its own. It is such a miracle of sustained melodic inspiration and is so beautifully written for the piano that, while it must be the longest of all Beethoven’s slow movements, time stands still.

The sadly contemplative main theme is comparatively modestly scored on its initial appearance, muted in sound and, though dense in harmony and texture, plain in line. As that theme dies away, however, and a syncopated figure is set up in the right hand over an accompaniment of regular rhythms in the left, a new idea enters to be elaborated in melodic decorations as seductive and as expressive as anything in a Chopin nocturne. Its function is to lead into an even more sonorously scored episode featuring an ecstatic dialogue shared between the right hand at the bottom of the keyboard, crossing over undulating harmonies in the left, and the same hand three or four octaves higher. On its recapitulation the opening theme too is melodically embellished, its once plain line now so profusely decorated that it is scarcely recognisable. Although it retains its melancholy harmonies, its transformation here anticipates, at a distance, the emotional reconciliation achieved at the end of the movement.

Largo - allegro risoluto

“To make a fugue requires no particular skill,” Beethoven once said. “In my student days I made dozens of them. But the imagination wishes also to assert its privilege, and today a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form.” The last movement of the “Hammerklavier” represents if not the ultimate in Beethoven’s development of the fugue – that was still to come in his Grosse Fuge for string quartet – then it represents its absolute limit in terms of piano music. Respected commentators have gone so far as to say that it exceeds that limit – both for the pianist and, let’s face it, the listener. Before he can get started, however, the composer has to return to reality after the heavenly slow movement – which he achieves in a Largo introduction of extraordinary harmonic and metrical freedom while, apparently, looking for a theme for the fugue which is to follow.

The theme he decides on, as the tempo definitively changes to Allegro risoluto, begins with an upward bounce, deliberately echoing that of the main theme of the first movement, to an always easily recognisable trill. The contrast between the percussive and the lyrical, which was such a prominent feature of the first two movements, is revived here. The percussive element long predominates as the fugue theme sets off in brisk pursuit of itself and runs into in ever more complex situations. It is brought to a temporary end in a climax of trills and bouncing upward leaps. After a short silence, the lyrical element enters in the form of another, quieter fugue of evenly flowing lines. Although it seems for a while that the percussive and the lyrical are to be combined in a double fugue, the lyrical element is forced out in a process of ever increasing tension that leads, finally, to a brilliantly dramatic fantasy on the trill that has sustained the whole massive construction.

Gerald Larner © 2018

Beethoven: piano sonata op 106

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata in B flat major, Op.106 (“Hammerklavier”)

Allegro

Scherzo: allegro vivace

Adagio sostenuto

Largo - allegro risoluto

The “Hammerklavier” is twice as long as any of Beethoven’s other piano sonatas. It is longer than any of his string quartets and longer even than most of his symphonies. Clearly, there was a very special effort involved in its composition and - according to Czerny who played it to him shortly after its publication in 1819 - Beethoven was fully aware of its stature. His apparent readiness to cut out a movement or two, to make it more attractive to London publishers, should not be taken as an indication the he had no care for its integrity. It is more an indication of the hardships the composer had to suffer when working on long-term projects of unprecedentedly large-scale dimensions. The “Hammerklavier,” the “Choral” Symphony and the Missa Solemnis were all in his mind in 1818 and 1819, which meant that he had to do hack work as well to earn a living.

As he told Ries, who was negotiating for him in London, “The sonata was written in distressful circumstances, for it is hard to compose almost entirely for the sake of earning one’s daily bread, and that is all I have been able to achieve.” Then, a few days after the told Ries he could leave out the Scherzo or the fugue or both - “I leave it to you to do as you think best” - he sent him very careful instructions about a bar which was to be inserted at the beginning of the slow movement. This bar, a rising major third in octaves, was an inspired afterthought and a fascinating demonstration of his concern for unity in the biggest piano sonata ever written.

The main melodic feature of the percussive main theme is the upward leap, over two octaves and a major third, between the first two notes. The interval of the third is not prominent in the abundant thematic material of the second subject, although the unconventional key in which it is presented - G major, a third below the tonic - is significant, and the expressive arches of the serene cantabile theme of this group are built out of seconds and thirds. The development begins in E flat, which is another drop of a third. Moreover, as Charles Rosen has pointed out, the fugato on the first theme is constructed almost exclusively out of sequences of descending thirds. In this way, the development arrives at a B major version of the second-subject cantabile very shortly before the recapitulation begins abruptly in B flat major.

The short second movement echoes this bold opposition of tonalities. It is a scherzo in B flat major, the outer sections based on a theme of rising and falling thirds, the middle section (in the tonic minor) with a legato theme constructed out of thirds and fourths. Just before the end, at first quietly and then violently, Beethoven confronts B and B flats in naked octaves.

It is presumably because of the percussive quality of the first two movements that the word “Hammerklavier” has seemed to have some crude kind of relevance and has stuck to Op.106 as a nickname. (The other sonatas, Op.101 and Op.109, which Beethoven specifically designated as being for “Hammerklavier” - the German term which he preferred to pianoforte - have not been so honoured.) The slow movement, on the other hand, is an unparalleled masterpiece of sustained cantabile writing, and in a key quite distant from the B flat major of the opening Allegro and the Scherzo.

The Adagio sostenuto is not, however, unrelated, either thematically or emotionally, to the earlier movements. The afterthought of the rising third to introduce the first theme is one indication of that, and the shape of the theme itself is another. It is interesting, too, that this theme twice modulates from F sharp minor to G major, as though for a glimpse of the serenity already experienced in that key in the exposition of the first movement. After that, the F sharp minor lyricism is still more inspired, the melody poised con grand’ espressione over a syncopated counterpoint in the right hand and a simple chordal accompaniment in the left. As a valuable textural contrast, in the second subject the melody alternates between the bottom of the keyboard and the top, as the right hand crosses the undulating D major harmonies in the left.

In a movement of such proportions, the development is surprisingly short. Where the dimensions find their heavenly extensions is in the recapitulation. After the return of the first theme, heavily disguised in decorative figuration, the brief glimpse of G major serenity, the con grand’ espressione passage reappears not in F sharp minor but in D major. The anomaly will have to be resolved later, in spite of the stabilising influence of the reintroduction of the second subject in F sharp major. Moreover, there is a modulation from F sharp major to G major again, in which key the second subject makes another appearance. So the coda is, in fact, an abbreviated second recapitulation in F sharp vacillating between the minor and the major and ending in the major.

The massive contrapuntal structure with which the work ends is headed Fuga a tre voci, con alcuna licenze - which is not so much an apology for breaking the rules as an advertisement. “To make a fugue requires no particular skill,” Beethoven said. “In my student days I made dozens of them. But the imagination wishes also to assert its privilege, and today a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form.” But before demonstrating his modern fugue, Beethoven crosses the gap from F sharp major Adagio to B flat major Allegro risoluto in an elaborate transition, which includes an interesting pastiche of baroque counterpoint in the middle.

In its initial leap up a tenth (an octave and a third), topped by a trill, the fugue subject is both thoroughly distinctive and related to most other themes in the sonata. The course it pursues, however - there is no point in concealing the fact - is extremely complex: it is as much a virtuoso performance to follow it in detail as to play it. Broadly, it is divided into two unequal parts by the intervention of a restful (though still fugal) episode in D major, where the motion in semiquavers stops for the first time. After the exposition of the subject and countersubject, the main events of the first and longer part are sections based on a rhythmic variant of the subject, on the subject in augmentation (prolonging the trill to four beats), on the subject played backwards with a new cantabile countersubject, and on the subject in inversion - all separated by more or less free episodes based on related thematic material.

The second part of the fugue begins as though it were about to become a double fugue, on the first subject and on the melody of the D major episode as a second subject. The latter is, however, abandoned in a stretto where the subject in its direct from answers its inversion. In the final section these two forms are combined again, but beginning on the same beat this time, so that they mirror each other, until the subject makes a climactic last appearance in its original form high in the right hand. For the first time the three-part textures is abandoned in the coda, a free and dramatic fantasy on the trill which has sustained the whole massive construction.

The “Hammerklavier” is twice as long as any of Beethoven’s other piano sonatas. It is longer than any of his string quartets and longer even than most of his symphonies. Clearly, there was a very special effort involved in its composition and – according to Czerny who played it to him shortly after its publication in 1819 – Beethoven was fully aware of its stature. His apparent readiness to cut out a movement or two, to make it more attractive to London publishers, should not be taken as an indication the he had no care for its integrity. It is more an indication of the hardships the composer had to suffer when working on long-term projects of unprecedentedly large-scale dimensions. The “Hammerklavier,” the “Choral” Symphony and the Missa Solemnis were all in his mind in 1818 and 1819, which meant that he had to do hack work as well to earn a living.

As he told Ries, who was negotiating for him in London, “The sonata was written in distressful circumstances, for it is hard to compose almost entirely for the sake of earning one’s daily bread, and that is all I have been able to achieve.” Then, a few days after the told Ries he could leave out the Scherzo or the fugue or both - “I leave it to you to do as you think best” - he sent him very careful instructions about a bar which was to be inserted at the beginning of the slow movement. This bar, a rising major third in octaves, was an inspired afterthought and a fascinating demonstration of his concern for unity in a work on such an enormous scale.

The main melodic feature of the percussive main theme is the upward leap, over two octaves and a major third, between the first two notes. The interval of the third is not prominent in the abundant thematic material of the second subject, although the unconventional key in which it is presented - G major, a third below the tonic - is significant, and the expressive arches of the serene cantabile theme of this group are built out of seconds and thirds. The development begins in E flat, which is another drop of a third. Moreover, as Charles Rosen has pointed out, the fugato on the first theme is constructed almost exclusively out of sequences of descending thirds. In this way, the development arrives at a B major version of the second-subject cantabile very shortly before the recapitulation begins abruptly in B flat major.

The short second movement echoes this bold opposition of tonalities. It is a scherzo in B flat major, the outer sections based on a theme of rising and falling thirds, the middle section (in the tonic minor) with a legato theme constructed out of thirds and fourths. Just before the end, at first quietly and then violently, Beethoven confronts B and B flats in naked octaves.

It is presumably because of the percussive quality of the first two movements that the word “Hammerklavier” has seemed to have some crude kind of relevance and has stuck to Op.106 as a nickname. (The other sonatas, Op.101 and Op.109, which Beethoven specifically designated as being for “Hammerklavier” - the German term which he preferred to pianoforte - have not been so honoured.) The slow movement, on the other hand, is an unparalleled masterpiece of sustained cantabile writing, and in a key quite distant from the B flat major of the opening Allegro and the Scherzo.

The Adagio sostenuto is not, however, unrelated, either thematically or emotionally, to the earlier movements. The afterthought of the rising third to introduce the first theme is one indication of that, and the shape of the theme itself is another. It is interesting, too, that this theme twice modulates from F sharp minor to G major, as though for a glimpse of the serenity already experienced in that key in the exposition of the first movement. After that, the F sharp minor lyricism is still more inspired, the melody poised con grand’ espressione over a syncopated counterpoint in the right hand and a simple chordal accompaniment in the left. As a valuable textural contrast, in the second subject the melody alternates between the bottom of the keyboard and the top, as the right hand crosses the undulating D major harmonies in the left.

In a movement of such proportions, the development is surprisingly short. Where the dimensions find their heavenly extensions is in the recapitulation. After the return of the first theme, heavily disguised in decorative figuration, the brief glimpse of G major serenity, the con grand’ espressione passage reappears not in F sharp minor but in D major. The anomaly will have to be resolved later, in spite of the stabilising influence of the reintroduction of the second subject in F sharp major. Moreover, there is a modulation from F sharp major to G major again, in which key the second subject makes another appearance. So the coda is, in fact, an abbreviated second recapitulation in F sharp vacillating between the minor and the major and ending in the major.

The massive contrapuntal structure with which the work ends is headed Fuga a tre voci, con alcuna licenze - which is not so much an apology for breaking the rules as an advertisement. “To make a fugue requires no particular skill,” Beethoven said. “In my student days I made dozens of them. But the imagination wishes also to assert its privilege, and today a new and really poetical element must be introduced into the old traditional form.” But before demonstrating his modern fugue, Beethoven crosses the gap from F sharp major Adagio to B flat major Allegro risoluto in an elaborate transition, which includes an interesting pastiche of baroque counterpoint in the middle.

In its initial leap up a tenth (an octave and a third), topped by a trill, the fugue subject is both thoroughly distinctive and related to most other themes in the sonata. The course it pursues, however - there is no point in concealing the fact - is extremely complex: it is as much a virtuoso performance to follow it in detail as to play it. Broadly, it is divided into two unequal parts by the intervention of a restful (though still fugal) episode in D major, where the motion in semiquavers stops for the first time. After the exposition of the subject and countersubject, the main events of the first and longer part are sections based on a rhythmic variant of the subject, on the subject in augmentation (prolonging the trill to four beats), on the subject played backwards with a new cantabile countersubject, and on the subject in inversion - all separated by more or less free episodes based on related thematic material.

The second part of the fugue begins as though it were about to become a double fugue, on the first subject and on the melody of the D major episode as a second subject. The latter is, however, abandoned in a stretto where the subject in its direct from answers its inversion. In the final section these two forms are combined again, but beginning on the same beat this time, so that they mirror each other, until the subject makes a climactic last appearance in its original form high in the right hand. For the first time the three-part textures is abandoned in the coda, a free and dramatic fantasy on the trill which has sustained the whole massive construction.