Beethoven: Sonata No.12 in A-flat major, Op.26 – Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

If Sonata No. 11 was a closing, summarising chapter of Beethoven’s early sonatas, then Sonata No. 12 is a door leading to exciting, hitherto unexplored musical worlds. The structural innovation is easy to point out: out of the Sonata’s four movements, none are in actual sonata form. Instead, Beethoven brings together a moderately slow opening movement (a theme with variations), a blazing scherzo, a funeral march and a quicksilver finale to form a fascinating story arc.

The musical development from Beethoven’s earlier sonatas is harder to pinpoint. Rather than any specific element, for me it’s a sense of a gradually eroding barrier between the content of the music and the emotions embodied within. From now on, Beethoven will push further and further in an attempt to capture ever more nuanced shades of emotion. He succeeds greatly, and his music embodies emotions ever more complex and multi-layered, ever harder to describe, but also ever easier for us to relate to; they feel closer, more realistic and alive.

Beethoven’s increasing emotional maturity and sensitivity comes alongside a boundless imagination and a control of the instrument which was astounding already around the time of his first sonatas, and has only increased since. The instrument becomes ever more malleable in Beethoven’s hands, the colours and sonorities he conjures ever more lifelike and evocative, natural and almost self-evident, inescapable in their truthfulness.

But I jump too far ahead – all this will apply much more to Beethoven’s later sonatas! Sonata No. 12 seems to me but the first step on this path, something we become aware of only in retrospect. I do believe we can sense the budding changes, especially in the first and third movements. The challenge of describing the opening theme exemplifies for me the complexity of feeling we’ll frequently encounter from now on. Outwardly, it’s elegant and noble, but rather than being detached or objective, the core is lyrical and personal, emotionally mature, suffused with a warm glow. It’s this combination of objective and subjective, perfectly balanced, which makes the opening page possibly the most challenging part of the entire sonata. Of the five variations that follow, two stand out: the third one, in the very uncommon key of A flat minor (seven flats!), which is like a premonition of the funeral march, heavy and hollow with pain; and the final one, with its gentle flow of triplets, embracing both listener and performer.

The funeral march, ‘On the Death of a Hero’, is yet another instance of a perfect balance between the objective and the subjective. The heavy, measured tread immediately conjures the scene of the march before our eyes, with the skill of a master storyteller. Yet personal emotion is constantly present, inseparable from the descriptive music; sometimes held back, sometimes barely controlled and overwhelming, specifically in the fortissimo chords of the climax, which are like cries of genuine anguish. The middle section that follows is, for me, problematic. The content is clear: depictions of drums and trumpets. But its very explicitness, unnuanced and direct, seems a jarring contrast to the complexity of feeling in the main body of the march. Perhaps this was Beethoven’s intention exactly – to clash the inner and outer worlds. And whatever the case, he fully compensates for it in the coda, in which the pain is transformed into acceptance and solace. Beethoven loved this movement, and it was performed at his own funeral in his orchestrated version.

The two other movements fit more conventionally in their roles within the sonata arc, but are not at all less exciting in their content. The scherzo is like an explosion of bright colour after the mellow first movement. Bold, full blooded and virtuosic, it blazes with vigour and youth. And the finale, a rondo in form, is a light-fingered perpetuum mobile, akin to a merrily bubbling brook which follows the funeral march to wash away all sorrow. It’s fleeting, like the play of light and shadow in a forest on a warm day, and disappears without a trace before you know it, evaporating into the depths of the keyboard.

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Beethoven 32 – Over the year 2020, I will be learning and filming all 32 Beethoven sonatas. Subscribe to this channel to follow the project, and visit https://beethoven32.com for blog posts and listening guides to each sonata.

Boris Giltburg, piano

Filmed by Stewart French
© 2020 Fly On The Wall, London (http://fotw.london)

Filmed at the Fazioli Concert Hall, Sacile, Italy
@Fazioli Pianoforti

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