Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 02/23/2011, uploaded on 08/10/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Surrounded by two of Beethoven’s greatest works for the piano, the Waldstein and Appassionata, this little two-movement sonata is often overlooked, and seldom heard outside complete cycle performances. Even with its slighter dimensions, it is full of character and structural novelty. Along with the Triple Concerto, it was sketched in 1804 seemingly as relief from the troublesome time he was having writing his opera Leonore, the first version of Fidelio.

The first movement is 'In the tempo of a Minuet', but has little in the way of dance-like gentility, once the opening phrase is out of the way. It has more the character of a rondo, with increasingly thunderous episodes separating the presentations of the main theme. The second movement is a moto perpetuo, with barely a break in its run of sixteenth notes. The entire movement is basically in two voices, one to a hand, filling out more substantially at the end.    Henry Wong Doe

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.