Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 03/16/2011, uploaded on 09/30/2011

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Beethoven was proud of his Op. 22, but it is not often played, possibly because his most popular sonatas are the ones that break the “rules” of the sonata by exploring new musical or expressive ground.  While Op. 22 is well-behaved, it nevertheless contains some lovely writing and demonstrates Beethoven’s compositional mastery at working with an economy of material.  The development of the first movement, based largely on a rising and falling scale used as the closing theme of the exposition, is dominated by a highly chromatic modulation that descends in both pitch and dynamics to the mysterious nether regions of the keyboard.  The following Adagio is poignant and meditative.  The minuet and Allegretto rondo that close the work are all Viennese charm, though shades of Beethovenian fury are never entirely absent.  Charles Rosen refers to this sonata as Beethoven’s “farewell to the eighteenth century.”      Andrew Brownell 

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.