Violin Sonata in G major, Op.30, No.3

The centre piece of Beethoven’s three Violin Sonatas, Op.30 - which were dedicated to the Tsar of Russia and, in spite of the hard-won equality between the two instruments, published in 1803 as “Three Sonatas for the piano with the accompaniment of a violin” - is the second in C minor. This is no reason, however, to undervalue the lyrical charm of the third in G major any more than the witty inspiration of the first in A major. The G major could qualify as the “pastoral” among Beethoven’s violin sonatas - and not only because of the echo of the last movement of the “Pastoral” Piano Sonata just before the end of the exposition of the first movement.

It is true that the work opens with a not very melodious rumble of semiquavers, on the two instruments in octaves, but its inspiration is essentially lyrical, as the melodic abundance of the Allegro assai so amply demonstrates. The diversion into minor harmonies in the second subject scarcely affects the situation. Although the development is concerned exclusively and not undramatically with the rumble, it is short and the confirmation of the melodic impulse in the recapitulation is correspondingly more secure.

The simplicity of the Tempo di Minuetto is deceptive. Its combination of minuet and slow-movement features is as subtle as, in Beethoven’s day, it was rare: his qualification of the tempo heading, ma molto moderato e grazioso, clearly indicates that he wanted it both ways at once. Whichever way you take it, as minuet or slow movement or both, it is another inspired confirmation of the lyrical impulse, including in one episode a thematic anticipation by nearly twenty years of the serenity of the first movement of the Piano Sonata, Op.110

The rustic third movement begins with a bagpipe accompaniment on the piano and a country-dance tune (with a Russian flavour perhaps) on the violin. The construction is correspondingly unsophisticated and amounts to little more than repetitions of that material in an inexhaustibly resourceful variety of colours. There are obviously mischievous intentions behind it - particularly at the point where the fiddle apparently gets out of time and the accompanist begins the coda in the curiously wrong key of E flat major - but it is no less affectionate for that.

Violin Sonata in C minor, Op.30, No.2

Allegro con brio

Adagio cantabile

Scherzo: allegro

Finale: allegro - presto

The C minor Violin Sonata - the centre piece of the set of three sonatas dedicated to Czar Alexander I of Russia in 1803 - is very much more ambitious than its companions. Although the composer himself was not entirely satisfied with the work, it is certainly worthy of its place in the very special line of Beethoven’s works in C minor and is surely no less compelling than either of the earlier piano sonatas (including the Pathétique) in that key.

There is obvious dynamic potential in the quiet but tense opening bars of the Allegro con brio where the latent energy of the first subject finds an early and explosive release in the exchange of muscular chords betwen piano and violin. The second subject, in the relative major, is more playful but still restless. In fact, from now - through the development and until the dramatic restatement of the first subject - there is a scarcely interrupted semiquaver activity in one instrument or the other. The pressure is not relaxed until the Adagio cantabile, which rests peacefully in the security of A flat major. Or so it seems until almost the end of the movement, when peace and tonal stability are rudely (if only temporarily) disrupted by abruptly violent scales of C major, first in the piano and then in the violin as well.

Beethoven must have felt that the progress of the Adagio had been all too easy up to that disruptive point. It might have been some similar feeling that led him to think seriously at one point about dropping the Scherzo which - the only such movement in the Op.30 set - he seems to have thought inappropriate in its context. A delightfully witty movement in C major, it is inspired and apt enough by anyone else’s standards. In any case, the urgency of Beethoven’s message is immediately re-affirmed by the last movement. Here is an abundance of the “tumult” Beethoven said he liked in the finale of a violin sonata. It is precipitated by the near panic of the opening bars, which constantly reappear to keep the movement alert until, paradoxically, they slow it down to make the maximum effect of the brilliant Presto coda.