LATE BEETHOVEN LATE BEETHOVEN - Luisa Guembes-Buchanan

What follows is a section of utmost passion, expressed
with almost operatic coloration over a detached accompaniment.
Charles Rosen maintains that Beethoven “achieved
here an intensity greater than any operatic composer had
ever imagined”. 16 The structure of falling thirds, though
present, is not so audibly prominent until the opening of
the development section where it appears remorselessly
(not unlike its appearance in the first movement). Here
Beethoven explores the juxtaposition of pedal sonorities
on the opening theme, and after a series of sequences of
descending thirds all finally drifts into the recapitulation.
The recapitulation is a complete reinterpretation of
the opening theme, providing an inner climax to the movement.
The dramatic climax is reserved for the coda. Here
Beethoven rises to an expansive, almost orchestral, close. At
the highest point he uses a device called Bebung, a repeated
note played with a strong accent on the weak beat, creating
the effect of a sob. The return of a curtailed form of the
opening theme projects deep resignation and resolves in F#
major with its third A# (enharmonically Bb) doubled in the
final chords.
The Largo introduction to the finale is called by
Charles Rosen “The Birth of Counterpoint, or The
Creation of a Fugue,” 17 whereas to Donald F. Tovey “the
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purport of this Largo is simply to find a way down a series
of descending thirds until the right key for the finale has
been reached”. 18 The opening searching gesture is a series
of F’s, arpeggiated across the pitch registers. Now a chain
of falling thirds begins, only to be interrupted three times
by other material, the last reminiscent of Bach. The opening
searching gesture is repeated, this time with A’s. Now
Beethoven brings a new passage of rhythmic and dynamic
acceleration to a fevered point and, after a final ritardando,
pivots to the introduction of the Finale risoluto. This entire
section is improvisatory in nature, partly without bar lines,
and the concentration of falling thirds is most revolutionary.
Even the notation enhances the feeling of a contrapuntal
structure slowly coming into being.
The fugue of op. 106 seems to William Kindermann
“not to affirm a higher, more perfect world of eternal
harmonies, as in Bach’s works, but to confirm an open
universe”. 19 This huge fugue begins as a very simple threevoice
imitative passage that quickly becomes exhaustive in
its contrapuntal resources. The theme leaps a tenth, recalling
the opening of the first movement; it is followed by a
trill and then goes through a series of descending thirds,
also similar to the opening movement, but with a drastically
different character.