Sonata in C minor Op.111 (1822)

Although it took him well over a year to compose his last three piano sonatas, Beethoven spoke nothng but the truth when he declared that they were “written in a single breath.” Sketched at the same time and inspired by a similar vision, they can be taken together to add up to one vast work on the same philosophical theme. In each one of them serenity is glimpsed as an ideal at a fairly early stage and, against all the odds, is secured at the end. In the Sonata in C minor, the last to be completed, the vision is particularly elusive and its ultimate realisation particularly sublime.

The first movement, beginning with an implacable Maestoso challenge that three times defies the establishment of any definitive tonality, is a tremendous struggle. When it eventually finds its way into C minor it is to launch a fierce attack led by a peremptory three-note motif. As the salient feature of the first subject, that motif dominates the whole movement. Its dynamic grip is avoided only by the second subject, which briefly but significantly affords a glimpse of the ideal in A flat major at the top end of the keyboard. While it has no place in the contrapuntal development, the second subject is somewhat expanded in the recapitulation, where it not only reappears in C major but also uses its persuasive influence to bring about a quiet ending in that more peaceable key.

The precarious achievement of serenity is one thing. To sustain it is quite another. The second movement – an Arietta with a series of variations in which everything seems to change but in which everything fundamental remains the same – is a uniquely inspired eternity of serenity. There is only one significant change of key, brought about after more than ten minutes of C major in a long series of trills, and this amounts to no more than an affirmation that no serious threat to C major serenity exists. The Arietta melody, now restored to its original shape and its original key, aspires to the higher regions of the keyboard where, accompanied by the flickering arpeggios and trills since imitated by generations of visionary composer-pianists, it finally achieves its apotheosis.

Although it took him well over a year to compose his last three piano sonatas, Beethoven spoke nothng but the truth when he declared that they were “written in a single breath.” Sketched at the same time and inspired by a similar vision, they can be taken together to add up to one vast work on the same philosophical theme. In each one of them serenity is glimpsed as an ideal at a fairly early stage and, against all the odds, is secured at the end. In the Sonata in C minor, the last to be completed, the vision is particularly elusive and its ultimate realisation particularly sublime.

The first movement, beginning with an implacable Maestoso challenge that three times defies the establishment of any definitive tonality, is a tremendous struggle. When it eventually finds its way into C minor, by way of a long low trill and a decisive change of tempo, it is to launch a fierce attack led by a peremptory three-note motif. As the salient feature of the first subject, that motif dominates the whole movement. Its dynamic grip is avoided only by the second subject, which briefly but significantly affords a glimpse of the ideal in A flat major at the top end of the keyboard. While it has no place in the contrapuntal development, the second subject is somewhat expanded in the recapitulation, where it not only reappears in C major but also uses its persuasive influence to bring about a quiet ending in that more peaceable key.

The precarious achievement of serenity is one thing. To sustain it is quite another. The second movement – an Arietta with a series of variations in which everything seems to change but in which everything fundamental remains the same – is a uniquely inspired eternity of serenity. The tempo seems to be twice as fast for the fugato of the second variation and faster again for the third, but in fact it is only the note values which change. The syncopations in the fourth variation are only superficially disturbing, since the long-preserved triple pulse is still perceptible below the surface and, indeed, when an upward scale brings the variation out of the dark, on the surface too.

There is only one significant change of key – brought about, after more than ten minutes of C major, in a long series of trills – and this amounts to no more than an affirmation that no serious threat to C major serenity exists. The Arietta melody, now restored to its original shape and its original key, aspires to the higher regions of the keyboard where, accompanied by the flickering arpeggios and trills since imitated by generations of visionary composer-pianists, it finally achieves its apotheosis.

While it obviously fanciful to believe that Beethoven was pre-destined to write nine symphonies, sixteen string quartets and thirty-two piano sonatas – who knows what he would have done had he lived as long as Haydn, say, or Salieri? – it is difficult not to see each series as a logical progression towards a supreme and unsurpassable achievement. There is something inescapably conclusive about the late string quartets, just as there is about last three piano sonatas which – although each one is shorter than the “Hammerklavier” that immediately precedes them – can be taken together to add up to one vast work on the same philosophical theme. “Written,” according to Beethoven “in a single breath,” they actually occupied him for well over a year, but they were sketched at much the same time and they are inspired by a similar vision. Serenity is glimpsed at a fairly early stage and secured, against all odds, at the end.

In the very last in the series, the Sonata in C minor completed in 1822, the vision is particularly elusive and its ultimate realisation particularly sublime. The first movement, beginning with an implacable Maestoso challenge that three times defies the establishment of any definitive tonality, is a tremendous struggle. When it eventually finds its way into C minor, by way of a long low trill and a decisive change of tempo, it is to launch a fierce attack led by a peremptory three-note motif. As the salient feature of the first subject, that motif dominates the whole movement. Its dynamic grip is avoided only by the second subject, which briefly but significantly affords a glimpse of the ideal in A flat major at the top end of the keyboard. Although it has no place in the contrapuntal development, the second subject is somewhat expanded in the recapitulation, where it not only reappears in C major but also uses its persuasive influence to bring about a quiet ending in that more peaceable key.

The precarious achievement of serenity is one thing. To sustain it is quite another. The second movement – an Arietta with a series of variations in which everything seems to change but in which everything fundamental remains the same – is a uniquely inspired eternity of serenity. The tempo seems to be twice as fast for the fugato of the second variation and faster again for the third, but in fact it is only the note values which change. The syncopations in the fourth variation are only superficially disturbing, since the long-preserved triple pulse is still perceptible below the surface and, indeed, when an upward scale brings the variation out of the dark, on the surface too.

There is only one significant change of key –    brought about, after more than ten minutes of C major, in a long series of trills – and this amounts to no more than an affirmation that no serious threat to C major serenity exists. The Arietta melody, now restored to its original shape and its original key, aspires to the higher regions of the keyboard where, accompanied by the flickering arpeggios and trills since imitated by generations of visionary composer-pianists, it finally achieves its apotheosis.