Beethoven: The Tempest | Sonata No.17 in D minor, Op.31 No.2 | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

‘Just read The Tempest!’ Beethoven allegedly told his sometime secretary Anton Schindler, in reply to a request to provide the key to Sonata No. 17. This connection with one of Shakespeare’s last plays was the source of the Sonata’s nickname. But the problem with this story is twofold: first, in Schindler’s account, Beethoven’s reply applied to both Sonata No. 17 and
Sonata No. 23. The latter, by the time of the story’s publication, already had a nickname – ‘Appassionata’ – and so the ‘Tempest’ nickname only stuck to the sonata that was still unnamed. Secondly, today we know that Schindler was a forger and a fabricator – many of his entries in the written conversation books with Beethoven were inserted by him long after Beethoven’s death (as shown by research in the 1970s and ’80s), and thus it is impossible to say whether any reply which he had attributed to Beethoven was true or falsified.

In the end, perhaps it doesn’t matter. The nickname wouldn’t have held, had listeners and performers not felt it reflected some true part of the music’s core. Whether or not we link it to the play, the opening of the Sonata is breathtakingly strong. With one simple broken chord, Beethoven creates so much atmosphere and promises so much magic that the music transports us elsewhere right away. This is also Beethoven’s own magic: to take something as commonplace as a chord used to signal the beginning of a recitativo in opera all throughout the 18th century, and to transform it into a work of art simply by slowing it down and bringing its dynamic down to pianissimo.

As always with Beethoven, once a motif has been introduced – and the broken chord is very much a motif – he will explore its full potential. The stormy main theme derives directly from it, as does the entire development section and the opening of the second movement. But the broken chords themselves recur multiple times inside the movement: in the repeat of the exposition, later on at the demarcation line between the exposition and the development, and most remarkably between the development and the reprise. There, their recitativo-opening origin is finally acknowledged – and in what a way! Beethoven writes two doleful recitativo lines, both pianissimo, bathed in a single continuous pedal, allowing harmonies to cloud over – it’s an otherworldly sound, haunted and haunting (5:52).

Two other elements are in play: a hyperventilating motif made of short two-quaver groups, and a tremolo of triplets. From these blocks, Beethoven constructs a movement unified in mood and colour – everything is dark and tense. Dynamics vary wildly, from the pianissimo of the broken chords to the stormy rage of the fortissimo tremolos in the development. The short coda – or rather afterword – is gloomy and subdued, a pause in the story rather than a full stop.

The second movement (8:41) allows us to breathe, its major key a respite from the preceding darkness. But the shadow doesn’t fully pass: later on in the movement Beethoven introduces a motif reminiscent of distant drums, bringing back coiled energy and tension (9:46). Harmonically, the movement is extremely stable, repeatedly coming back to the home key. This, together with the slow elegance of the music, creates a curious effect: it is as if we were in a stasis, safe for the moment, but inevitably feeling that if the story is to continue, we would need to leave this B flat major shelter.

Once this happens, the finale starts gently (15:11) – a spinning wheel of a perpetuum mobile, with a caressing dynamic and light tempo. Until, without warning, the world explodes about us (15:39), launching the music (and us) into narrative and emotional turmoil. From that point on, it is all relentless, unremitting tension, in one wave after another, almost through to the end. The softer sections return a few times, and it is that music, like a framing device, that brings the movement to a close. Viewing it from a 21st-century perspective, I can’t help but imagine it as a cinematographic effect – the soft sections are the tale being told from afar, while in the stormy ones we are put into the thick of action. It’s a harrowing movement, picking up the storyline from the end of the first movement to complete an arch of great emotional and dramatic impact.

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Beethoven 32 – Over the course of 2020, I have learned and filmed 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)
@Fazioli Pianoforti

Видео Beethoven: The Tempest | Sonata No.17 in D minor, Op.31 No.2 | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project канала Boris Giltburg