beethoven's 32 piano sonatas robert silverman - Music on Main

Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 “Hammerklavier”
composed 1816-17, published 1819
In addition to the Hammerklavier’s 5 enormous demands upon a performer’s technique and his/her powers of
concentration, the work also poses unusual problems for the serious interpreter. It was published in both
Vienna and London under Beethoven’s supervision, but the autograph has never been found. Unfortunately,
the two sources contain many divergent readings, sometimes in important places. There is also an
incomprehensible reversal of the order of second and third movements in the London edition.
Ironically, the area of tempo, where Beethoven ostensibly went out of his way to be as explicit as possible, is
equally problematic. Although Op. 106 is the only <strong>piano</strong> sonata with metronome indications, some of these
markings are simply ludicrous. Pianists who can manage the first movement at the proscribed 138 to the halfnote
(I freely admit to not being among them) succeed only in making as strong a case as possible against the
validity of such a notion 6 . Even if Beethoven’s primitive metronome was accurate, two other facts must be
taken into consideration. Composers often “hear” their music faster than anyone else: they do not require the
time the rest of us need to absorb it because they have digested it so thoroughly during the process of
creating it. Furthermore, with Beethoven now virtually deaf, it is likely that he had lost the spatial sense that
music requires in order to be cogent, and for its nuances to be adequately conveyed.
It is commonly known that the Hammerklavier is by far his longest sonata. This is due mostly to the vast
landscape of the slow movement. The outer movements are only moderately lengthy, while the Scherzo is one
of his briefest creations. The piece is also sonically huge, sounding extraordinarily symphonic. 7 There is no
sidestepping the fact that the Hammerklavier is also as tough, gnarled, and uncompromising as anything
Beethoven wrote, except perhaps for the Grosse Fuge.
Above all, it is relentlessly obsessive. A single interval, the third, permeates all the movements at the motivic,
melodic and harmonic levels. In fact, that interval forms the basis of virtually every principal theme in the
sonata. Similarly, although the dominant note F might be expected to play a key role, with large-scale areas of
the piece in that key, just as it does in all other works of the classical era, its role here is extremely limited.
Beethoven frequently uses the dominant chord as a brief resting-place before returning to the tonic. However,
never once does he actually modulate to the key of F. Instead, all important modulations are to a key that is a
third higher or lower than the immediately preceding one. 8
In other words, as early as 1816, Beethoven was attempting to do nothing less than re-define the concept of
tonality by casting aside the traditional role of the dominant key (the second most fundamental entity in the
tonal system), and elevating another note—the third—to that level of importance. It is not too great an
exaggeration to state that we must look almost a century ahead, to Debussy and Schoenberg, in order to find
so radical a transformation of musical thought. 9
For the sonata’s layout, Beethoven reverted to the four-movement Grande Sonate model that he had used so
frequently in his youth. The opening movement is in sonata form, complete with a (very) necessary repeat of
the Exposition. Immediately following the recapitulation, Beethoven jarringly introduces the theme in B minor,
which he is known to have regarded as a “dark key.” From that point on, B minor serves as B flat major’s
antithesis, with the struggle between the two keys occurring at various points throughout the sonata, most
obviously at the conclusion of the Scherzo.
The first movement also contains the most disputed reading in all of Beethoven’s <strong>piano</strong> music. Just prior to the
return of the main theme there is a progression of notes in the bass line, in which an A-sharp becomes the
5 There is no single instrument called a Hammerklavier. Rather, it refers, in German to a keyboard instrument with hammers. Romance language terms – even for something as common as <strong>piano</strong> – were out of favor in the immediate post-
Napoleonic era. Beethoven himself had also indicated that the Sonata Op. 101 was written for the Hammerklavier, but the nickname has stuck only to this work.
6 Solomon being the notable exception. I was referring to everyone else, of course.
7 Paradoxically, the sense of a <strong>piano</strong> (and perhaps the pianist as well) straining at its limits is required in order for that effect to be felt. The conductor Felix Weingartner actually made an orchestration of the sonata; the third movement is
remarkably successful, but overall, at least in his own recording with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the piece sounds smaller than it does in the hands of any competent pianist.
8 Ironically, B flat major is only peripherally related to the intricate system of four keys he constructs around it, and returns to time and time again. Three of them, G, D, and F sharp, are separated from B flat by, almost predictably, the interval of
a third. I believe that these unorthodox “ground rules” are one of the chief elements that make the piece such a “tough nut to crack.” The sonata superficially sounds as if it is in a traditional key, but its internal workings are markedly different.
9 In this respect, he was ahead of the late 19th century composers like Liszt and Wagner, who, by exploiting and thwarting our expectations of traditional harmonic practice, were still acknowledging its traditions.
<strong>Music</strong> on Main presents Silverman plays Beethoven. September 27, 2010 – April 5, 2011 at the Cellar Restaurant & Jazz Club. www.musiconmain.ca
Programme notes by Robert Silverman. © Robert Silverman