Happy (near) Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven @ 250!

Celebrating one of the most extraordinary, and far-reaching, Sonatas in Western Music – Beethoven’s “Hammerklavier” (No. 29, Op. 106), written in 1818!

Listen to a legendary performance of this great piece (by the legendary performer, Rudolph Serkin) by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=pwdVVCN6qW4

(ALSO LISTEN to a new recording by Beth Levin (https://www.bethlevinpiano.com/ ), International Concert Pianist (who studied with Rudolph Serkin) just released in November 2020 – courtesy of the Aldilà Records label. 

Find the new recording (disc & mp3) here: https://www.amazon.com/Hammerklavier-Live-Beth-Levin/dp/B08KH3T489

And… Happy Birthday to you, Beth!)

Ludwig van Beethoven (Born in Bonn, Germany in 1770; died in Vienna, Austria in 1827)

Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106, “Hammerklavier”

1. Allegro

2. Scherzo: Assai Vivace

3. Adagio sostenuto

4. Introduzione: Largo – Fuga: Allegro risoluto

Late in his life, when Beethoven was asked which of his works he considered to be his finest, he singled out his Third (“Eroica”) and Ninth Symphonies, his Missa Solemnis, and his “Hammerklavier” Sonata (No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106).  His choices make sense because what Beethoven most strove for in his art was not just beauty, but complexity and challenges, progression in the art – the “giving birth to God’s children,” as he said. And each of these works was indeed this kind of piece: the Eroica was his response to his coming deafness and his dissatisfaction with the Classical norms in music at the time; the Missa Solemnis, what he sometimes considered his “most important” piece, was intended to bring the performers and listeners “closer to the Creator;” the Ninth, his inevitable apotheosis of the Symphony was the melding of instrument and voice and philosophy. A special pride was reserved for his massive Hammerklavier Sonata, however – it was the beginning of Beethoven’s last compositional stage, the so-called “giganticism” (or “third”) phase in length and breadth, in which he sought a more “Universal” and ennobling aesthetic. These were compositions that reached “beyond the canopy of the stars,” as he and the poet Schiller said, and which brought both his art and the music of the old masters into a new light.

The Hammerklavier, written in 1818, was one of two Sonatas that he titled “Gro?e Sonate für das Hammerklavier” to indicate that these works were for piano (“ammerklavier” in German), not harpsichord. It was this one, Op. 106, which kept the nickname. It was written at a particularly trying time in Beethoven’s life. For several years, his musical output had somewhat floundered: his last Symphony, No. 8, was 6 years old, his last piano sonata, 2 years past. His deafness had finally reached a point where Beethoven had to commit to using conversation books exclusively, a kind of final blow to the fact that there would be no turning back. He was also still embroiled in court battles with his sister-in-law over the custody of his nephew, Carl, after the early death of Beethoven’s brother, Carl’s father. The lad never took well to his uncle, and despite Beethoven’s best intentions, nothing was working out, including the humiliation of having to acknowledge publicly that the “van” in his name, signifying royalty, was unfounded and a pretention invented by Beethoven himself. On the other hand, Beethoven had just received an invitation from the Royal Philharmonic Society to come to London along with a commission-offer for two new symphonies. Although the visit never happened, and the commission was eventually postponed, Beethoven did sketch out the extraordinary Scherzo and part of the first movement to what would become his Ninth Symphony. But instead of devoting himself solely to these possible symphonic commissions, he began composing his Hammerklavier Sonata instead.

To be sure, the Hammerklavier is symphonic in scope – it’s the longest solo work written to that date, some 45 minutes or more in length and it has the telltale signs of Beethoven’s metamorphosing of genres, just as he would do in 1824 with his Ninth Symphony. And, for the pianist, it’s the equivalent of the weight of a symphonic work. It’s one of the most difficult sonatas Beethoven ever wrote, complex and extremely challenging, gigantic in its musical ideas, as well as its sheer technical demands. But by far, the pianist’s biggest challenge is to reveal the almost impenetrable musical narratives within this great work that, as Berlioz put it, poses the “riddle of the Sphinx.”

The first movement opens in grandeur – like a fanfare for royalty. In fact, Beethoven was working on a birthday piece for his beloved royal student and patron, the Archduke Rudolph of Austria, and the opening strains were set as “Vi-vat, vi-vat Ru-dolph-us!” (“Long live Rudolph”). This motive translated into the Hammerklavier’s opening, and not surprisingly, the Sonata is dedicated to the Archduke. But there’s more to the work than a celebratory salute. In short order, that motive changes key conspicuously from its home key, B-flat Major, to D Major. This change, of the interval of third, then saturates the rest of the work in every way; key changes are always a third (or its inverted interval, a sixth) above or below, even between movements, and melodic motives and melodies are almost incessantly moving by thirds. It’s the kind of thing Beethoven was doing in his symphonic writing – boiling a piece of musical fabric down to a bare bones device – a rhythm, for example (think of the opening motive of the Fifth Symphony, or the incessant rhythms of the Seventh), or a melody (think of the simple triadic main theme of the Eroica) – and making that bone jangle in every conceivable way. The interval of a third is that device here in the Hammerklavier, and yet, what’s so extraordinary about it is how Beethoven makes it sing and fit in the most ordinary of ways, like the changing of light and colors in the cycle of a day – natural, beautiful, obvious to the point of disappearing.

The second movement is an exceptional kind of wonder, and it exploits an inner turmoil that pervades subtly in the other movements. First, it’s a Scherzo in the vein of his near violent, almost comical, Scherzo of his Ninth Symphony which he had just sketched. Only in the Hammerklavier, everything is in the extreme, including the comedy. It’s barely 2 minutes in length, completely swallowed up by its surrounding movements, and yet it speaks loudly. Beethoven nods to his symphonic/piano sonata blending by quoting the first main theme to his Eroica in the minor key. But more obvious is the creeping sounds of the key of B Major, what Beethoven called “the black key.” At the end of the movement, the keys of B-flat and B vie for pride of place, until B-flat is pounded out in octaves at fortissimo, driving the interloping key back into the shadows, like chasing spiders. But it will return, as a lurking foil, and as something to be vanquished.

Though the Sonata explores the realms of symphonic writing, the third movement is more a towering testament to Beethoven’s ability to create deeply intimate music – almost disarmingly so. Its existence in this Sonata, which Beethoven has already established as epic in the first two movements, seems surprising. But the piano is the musical voice where Beethoven began – on which he learned music, with which he became one of Europe’s greatest virtuosos – and which remained his constant companion even in his deafness, its keys like codes to sound, its vibrations still “the breath of the Creator” humming through Beethoven’s marrow. Here is where Beethoven pens his musical version of his Heilengestadt Testament, pouring out his soul in pianistic sound, yet intimately epic in its own way. The theme for this set of variations that we first hear is perhaps wrought out of a deep sentiment that Beethoven scribbled in the sketches of the work: “… Longing or yearning, liberation or fulfillment…” The theme is gorgeous and lonely, and its variations deeply private, nearly speaking on a different plane of consciousness – arguably, there is little in the piano repertoire that approaches the magnitude and spirituality of this Adagio – making it one of the most sublime movements in Beethoven’s oeuvre. As a final touch, just before its publication some months after its submission, Beethoven sent along a last minute change, just as he had done with the beginning of his Eroica Symphony – he added two chords to begin the work, which, in both pieces, make for an uncanny difference.

Such a singular moment in music as the Adagio could only be followed by something colossal. And indeed, the Hammerklavier’s finale is a tour de force of near-volcanic contrapuntal activity. After a fantasia-like introduction, of the kind that Bach and Handel used before their great fugues, and foreshadowing the introduction to the finale of his Ninth Symphony (in the sense of changing tableaus prior to its main theme), the finale is a great, mind-boggling fugue, employing every technique that can be used in that estimable form. And its weight is colossal. But Beethoven as innovator often looked backwards to look forward, and this finale brings the mighty musical achievements of his musical heroes, Bach and Handel, into the present – a fugue to end all fugues, in a way. For the performer, there are constant trills and countersubjects going on simultaneously in each hand for measures upon measures – a great technical performance itself is quite a physical achievement – the Hammerklavier is a bit like tossing boulders gracefully. But the pianist must also be aware of the harmonic tension of the B mode throughout and bring it to light – in short, must also be a poet and dramatist. 

Yet in the throes of all its bigness, a moment of complete serenity arrives, marked “sempre dolce e cantabile.” Less than 30 bars long, it sings like a ghost, as if Handel or Bach were humming the beginnings of a chorale… its placement here by Beethoven, with its calmness and dreamlike beauty, make it almost surreal. This great achievement exemplifies Beethoven’s new aesthetics – embracing everything, gigantic and small, loud and soft, tender and cruel, Sonata and Symphony – becoming more “Universal.” And then, at last, to complete this fugue to end all fugues, Beethoven launches into a near dizzying display of runs and trills and, with a brief look back to the first movement’s “Rudolphus” theme, the great Hammerklavier burns to the end with ivory fireworks and giant, hammered chords.

(? Max Derrickson – see more of my music writing at www.MusicProgramNotes.com)