Sonata in D major Op.10 No.3 (1798)

During Beethoven’s early years in Vienna the Count and Countess Browne-Camus were not only loyal and generous in their patronage of the young composer but also, it seems, more than a little eccentric. In return for the dedication of the Wranitzky Variations to the Countess in 1797 they gave him a handsome horse, which he took out riding a few times and then forgot until he received a huge bill for feeding it. How they rewarded him for the dedication to the Countess of the three Piano Sonatas Op.10 in 1798 we do not know, although the slow movement of the Sonata in D major alone would have been worth a whole stable of horses.

The Largo e mesto of Op.10, No.3, is such an intense experience that the other three movements can be heard only in relation to it, in anticipation of it or escape from it. The first movement is not the usual Allegro but a Presto that, in uncertain anticipation of what is to come, does not have the time to impose itself or extend itself. It doubts are far from groundless. The Largo e mesto begins in stark D minor, its melodic line wandering disconsolately round one note, and as it proceeds it displays its anguish in a variety of operatic and instrumental devices – in expressively decorated arioso, unsettling syncopations and pauses, heated exchanges between left hand and right, grindingly dissonant harmonies. Most touching of all, as Schubert clearly appreciated, is the central episode in a nostalgic F major that is immediately proved illusory in confrontation with more minor harmonies and a sobbing vocal line high in the right hand.

The Menuetto evades the issues raised in the Largo e mesto by referring back to the first movement, its D major tonality, its basic thematic shape and its insistence on melodic phrases beginning on an upbeat. The final Rondo is similarly obsessed by the upbeat but, elusive though it is, cannot so easily escape the harmonic and other implications of the slow movement. The uncertain passage in syncopations near the end and the still brooding left hand under chromatic runs in the coda are symptomatic of the anxiety lingering round the D major conclusion.

During Beethoven’s early years in Vienna the Count and Countess Browne-Camus were not only loyal and generous in their patronage of the young composer but also, it seems, more than a little eccentric. In return for the dedication of the Wranitzky Variations to the Countess in 1797 they gave him a handsome horse, which he took out riding a few times and then forgot until he received a huge bill for feeding it. How they rewarded him for the dedication to the Countess of the three Piano Sonatas Op.10 in 1798 we do not know, although the slow movement of the Sonata in D major alone would have been worth a whole stable of horses.

The Largo e mesto of Op.10 No.3 is such an intense experience that the other three movements can be heard only in relation to it, in anticipation of it or in escape from it. The first movement is not the usual Allegro but a Presto that does not have the time to impose or extend itself. While it begins happily enough in D major, within a few bars it is in anxious flight with a new theme in B minor and, after the brief but dramatically urgent development section, that second subject is recalled in the not at all reassuring key of E minor.

The fears expressed in the first movement are far from groundless. The Largo e mesto begins in stark D minor, its melodic line wandering disconsolately round one note, and as it proceeds it displays its anguish in a variety of operatic and instrumental devices - in expressively decorated arioso, unsettling syncopations and pauses, heated exchanges between left hand and right, grindingly dissonant harmonies. Most touching of all, as Schubert clearly appreciated, is the central episode in a nostalgic F major that is immediately proved illusory in confrontation with more minor harmonies and a sobbing vocal line high in the right hand. The second half of the movement begins by repeating the first but then varies it to make it even darker, leaving out the F major episode and replacing it with a particularly gloomy development of the main theme low in the left hand.

The Menuetto evades the issues raised in the Largo e mesto by referring back to the first movement, its D major tonality, its basic thematic shape and its insistence on melodic phrases beginning on an upbeat - a characteristic which becomes the subject of a good cross-hands joke in the central Trio section. The final Rondo is similarly obsessed by the upbeat but, elusive though it is, it cannot so easily escape the harmonic and other implications of the slow movement. The uncertain passage in syncopations near the end and the still brooding left hand under chromatic runs in the coda are symptomatic, however discreetly, of the anxiety lingering round the D major conclusion.