BEETHOVEN. The Late Piano Sonatas Op. 109, 110 and 111. Ian Holtham

Transcription

1 BEETHOVEN The Late Piano Sonatas Op. 109, 110 and 111 Ian Holtham

2 LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN Piano Sonata Op. 109 in E major [16 06] 1 I. Vivace ma non troppo Adagio espressivo II. Prestissimo III. Gesangvoll mit innigster Empfindung (Andante molto cantabile ed espressivo) Performed on the Farren-Price Steinway Piano Sonata Op. 110 in A-flat major [17 16] 4 I. Moderato cantabile molto espressivo II. Allegro molto III. Adagio ma non troppo Arioso Fuga L istesso tempo di Arioso L istesso tempo della fuga poi a poi di nuovo vivente 9 17 Performed on the Holtham Steinway Piano Sonata Op. 111 in C minor [24 43] 7 I. Maestoso Allegro con brio ed appassionato II. Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile Performed on the Jost Steinway Total Playing Time Ian Holtham piano 2

3 The last decade of Beethoven s life was marked by ill-health, total deafness and an obsessive, destructive devotion to his nephew Karl after a bitter legal struggle with his sister-in-law. His character and behaviour were increasingly affected by illness. It was during these last years that he wrote the Ninth Symphony, the Missa Solemnis, the last five String Quartets, and the Diabelli Variations. He also completed his set of 32 piano sonatas with the massive Hammerklavier Sonata Op. 106, and the final three, Op. 109, 110 and 111. The Hammerklavier, standing apart from the final three sonatas, seems boldly to mark the end of one period and the beginning of a new era in Beethoven s piano works. The last three sonatas move away from all conventional aspects of form. They are intensely personal experiences, pervaded with a sense of humanity, truth and of the overcoming of great struggles that imbues them with a powerful moral quality and a sense of philosophical truth. We can see the composer communicating through his music, the only means through which he was able to do so with certainty. In all other aspects of his life, practical organisation, business affairs, and even in speech and writing, Beethoven always showed an intense vulnerability and struggle. Beethoven s early biographer Anton Schindler described him, touchingly, as a boy fallen to earth from some ideal world. In these three final piano sonatas, we feel Beethoven reveal himself with power and certainty. There is a finality to these works that suggests he had no more to say within the piano sonata genre. In this way these three magnificent sonatas convey a sense of creative finality and completion. Op. 109 in E major Published in 1821, the Piano Sonata Op. 109 was written in the aftermath of a four-year legal battle with Beethoven s sister-in-law to obtain guardianship of his nephew Karl. As with Op. 110 and 111, we can see a departure from traditional structure and a desire for formal continuity. The highly lyrical and extremely brief opening subject in E major, Vivace ma non troppo which opens the sonata like a breathless chorale is placed in sharp contrast to the intense figuration of the Adagio espressivo second subject. It is the first subject, however, which dominates the short development. After the recapitulation, a beautiful, simple chorale-like progression occurs, pure in heart. There is no formal double-barline ending of this movement. In the ensuing energy of the so-called second movement Beethoven actually seems to be providing us with another first movement. The 3

4 Prestissimo scherzo is tight and contrapuntal, the opening bass line being used in two-part material in the development. As Beethoven will do in his final sonata Op. 111, the last movement is in the form of highly expressive, characterised and cumulatively sustained variations. Although each variation is in the same key as the theme (E major), Beethoven maintains maximum contrast between them yet also conveys an abiding sense of musical unity and growth. The variations culminate with the melody being held in an extended trill. In this remarkable sound world, there is stillness within motion and the music is elevated to a higher emotional level. The hymn-like original theme returns to conclude the piece, revealing with this final repetition how much it has undergone in its transfiguration throughout the movement. Op. 110 in A-flat major Beethoven directs the performer at the opening of this sonata, finished in December 1821, to play Moderato cantabile molto espressivo and Con amabilità (with amiability), followed by the German word sanft, suggesting gentle tenderness. Such extensive and poetic directions suggest a deeply personal aural landscape and this intensely lyrical and intimate sonata continually expresses a deep feeling of humanity. Its chordal opening is not pianistically designed, resembling more the voicing and texture of a string quartet, a significant compositional preoccupation of Beethoven in his last years. Unlike the elaborate Op. 109, this movement creates its spiritual and ethereal atmosphere from simplicity. The music is pure and dignified and completely unselfconscious. Formally, this sonata has the most intricate movement structure of the three sonatas, as though Beethoven were questing through music history for structural models to shape such intimate thoughts. The second movement is cast as a march-like scherzo, in stark contrast to the qualities of the first movement and with an involuted trio that prefigures music of a later era. In keeping with Beethoven s concern for continuity, this movement ends with a cadence that seems to resolve on the opening chord of the following final movement, a double movement binding a plaintive arioso and a fugal finale into a single structure. The first part of this movement consists of recitative and an Arioso dolente, reminiscent of late Baroque opera. This sublime aria Beethoven has labelled Klagender Gesang (song of lamentation). Out of this heartrending music grows the fugue, based on 4

5 the very notes of the opening chordal theme of the first movement. The aria then returns in the surprisingly remote key of G minor and Beethoven has written the direction ermattet, klagend (exhausted, plaintive). The inversion of the fugal subject, initially in the still remote key of G major, then wends its way to a wonderfully cumulative reaffirmation of the fugal subject in the tonic key which swirls to triumph in the closing bars. Op. 111 in C minor Completed in January 1822, Beethoven s final piano sonata consists of only two movements which stand as a synthesis of musical opposites. The energetic struggle and turmoil of the first movement contrast fundamentally with the often heavenly, ethereal and deeply intimate spirituality of the second, parts of which have been described as the sound of eternity. There seems to be a philosophical core to the antithetical qualities of these two movements. The first movement is dramatically C minor, impassioned and full of contrasts within a tight and energetic sonata-form structure. The second movement is a heavenly C major Arietta which unfolds into one of the most wondrously sustained sets of variations ever conceived in all music. The first three variations build rhythmically into a variation of unleashed rhythmic energy which cascades with what can only be described as jazz syncopations. It is indeed possible that Beethoven became aware of the pulsations of African musical rhythms in Vienna around the time the sonata was written. After this torrent of rhythmic energy abates, the movement subsides into a deeply personal and increasingly ecstatic vision of musical eternity. The variations ebb and flow with a divine sense of acoustic rightness. The theme and variations of Op. 111, unlike those of Op. 109, are not variations of contrast, but of growth and evolution, accumulating a musical glow which radiates as the listener is guided through each successive variation. As this incomparable movement unfolds, we, the listeners, hover with Beethoven in the realms of musical infinity. The movement subsides as it began and Beethoven s last compositional gesture in the genre of the piano sonata a genre he created and dominates as no other composer is at an end. Ian Holtham and Coady Green 5

6 Ian Holtham and the Melba Hall Steinway concert grands These three Steinway D concert grand pianos represent the finest collection of concert instruments in any institution of advanced musical training in Australia. In recent years Melba Hall has become home to a host of major pianistic events which have highlighted and reflected the stature of these pianos: major piano and chamber recital series and masterclasses by distinguished international and Australian pianists, as well as innumerable high-profile piano awards and scholarships. The quality of the instruments housed here has been crucial to the artistic calibre of these key events in the national pianistic life of the country. The three instruments which make up the collection have all been named after pianists with a particularly strong association with the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne. In 1989 Ronald Farren-Price, who was my predecessor as Head of Keyboard, selected the instrument named after him. This instrument, which has functioned as the house piano of the Hall, is characterised by sonorous and rich tonal qualities. In 1999 I travelled to the musical home of Steinway in Hamburg and selected the instrument which now bears my name, a piano of subtle and wide-ranging colours which was christened in recital in In the next year I returned to Hamburg to select another instrument in order to augment the range of instruments that Melba Hall could offer. Whilst I was in the midst of the selection process in Germany, I received the news that the wonderful Australian pianist and pedagogue Mack Jost had died suddenly. He had been the longest-serving member of the piano staff in the history of the University of Melbourne. It was obvious that the instrument selected, a piano of compelling majesty of sound, should be named after him. This majestic piano was subsequently christened in a recital featuring Ronald Farren-Price, Stephen McIntyre, myself and the Machlak-Kharitonova duo. This CD is the first time the three instruments have been heard as solo instruments in one recording. The three last Beethoven Piano Sonatas are played in chronological order on the three pianos in the order of their arrival at Melba Hall. Ian Holtham 6

7 Recording Producer, Engineer and Editor Thomas Grubb Cover and Booklet Design Imagecorp Pty Ltd Recorded November 2003 and February 2004 in the Melba Hall, University of Melbourne. ABC Classics Robert Patterson, Martin Buzacott, Natalie Shea, Hilary Shrubb, Claudia Crosariol 2007 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Universal Music Group, under exclusive licence. Made in Australia. All rights of the owner of copyright reserved. Any copying, renting, lending, diffusion, public performance or broadcast of this record without the authority of the copyright owner is prohibited. 7

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