Violin Sonata in A minor, Op.23

Considering that it was written at about the same time as the Op.18 String Quartets and the First Symphony, the Violin Sonata in A minor seems curiously restrained. On its publication in 1801, together with its companion in F major, the so-called “Spring” Sonata, Beethoven’s contemporaries were evidently relieved by the “friendlier” disposition and “more accessible” technique of the two new works. Strangely, however, while the “Spring” Sonata could certainly have been conceived in that conciliatory spirit, the material of the Sonata in A minor suggests that the initial impulse behind it might have been rather different. The first movement is a Presto in a minor key, which implies urgency and agitation if not all-out drama. And yet, after the business-like beginning, what seems to be its true nature is denied it - not so much by the more lyrical second subject as by the diverting introduction of two new themes in the development, both of them by the violin, and the recall of one of them in the coda.

The Andante scherzoso, più allegretto in A major is clearly not the slow movement you might expect between a Presto and an Allegro molto but another highly resourceful diversion, a leisurely paced scherzo teasing a two-note phrase across the bar lines, toying with a fugue and ingeniously combining those two thematic features in the development. So it is up to the last movement, a rondo in A minor, to resolve the situation - which it neatly avoids doing by diverting its apparently firm agenda through a playful episode in A major and a broadly melodious one in F major before ending, though still in A minor, in quiet indecision.