There’s a certain famous performing arts venue that has lost a lot of Grammy Award-winning musicians these past few months. Such as Grammy Award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Correlation does not mean causation, but… ticket sales at that famous performing arts venue have “plummeted,” to use the same word as a certain politics website that does not normally cover music.
So I was very surprised to learn that Grammy Award-winning violinist Jennifer Koh is scheduled to play two Beethoven violin sonatas with pianist Thomas Sauer next month, along with a piece by contemporary American composer Vijay Iyer. It’s a program she will also play in New York.
Koh’s also got engagements with the Shreveport Symphony and the Vermont Symphony on her official website. Of course we should keep in mind that Koh probably signed contracts for all those concerts months if not years ago.
I’m not all that familiar with Beethoven’s violin sonatas, I only started studying them systematically last month. I have known some of Beethoven’s piano sonatas for a lot longer, and I’ve listened to each of them in recordings by at least two different pianist each. But they still contain many surprises, particularly with the later sonatas.
This is not to say that Beethoven’s early sonatas are completely straightforward and predictable. Really we can only say that of his absolute juvenilia.
Last week’s open thread was about Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, published all by itself as Opus 7. Now this week we’re on to the Opus 10 sonatas, a set of three that shows Beethoven’s growing mastery of the form.
The first of the Opus 10 sonatas is the Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor, which is in the same key as his famous Fifth Symphony.
For months I’ve been aware of Boris Giltburg, a Soviet-born Israeli pianist. All of his Beethoven sonata recordings are available on the Naxos label, and you can listen to any of them on the Naxos Music Library (if you have individual access, or institutional access through a university or such). But I’ve only recently become aware that most if not all of his Beethoven sonata recordings are also available on YouTube.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major is also, by coincidence, in the same key as the correspondingly numbered symphony. If there’s a word to describe the opening Allegro, it would have to be “playful.” The clear-cut F major of the two opening chords is immediately undercut with a suggestion of C major, as you can see from the middle incipit at the top. There are plenty more games before this first movement is over.
The middle movement, an Allegretto in F minor, is not so much melancholy as it is worried, and full of reproaches.
From Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Opus 10, No. 2, the beginning of the Allegretto.
This is followed by music that is Beethoven at his most joyous and untroubled. I vaguely remember hearing this music in a toy commercial as a child.
From Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Opus 10, No. 2, the beginning of the concluding Presto.
For the video I’m going with Maria Eydman, though I also seriously considered Daniel Baremboim, another Israeli pianist. But Eydman does have another connection to Giltburg: she was also born in Moscow, though more recently, as in years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It’s often amazing to me how simple some of Beethoven’s beginnings look on paper, and yet how right and perfect they sound. Such is the case with his Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Opus 10, No. 3. Its beginning looks like an exercise from a piano book. But even with such simple-looking music, Beethoven has subtleties that lead me to realize that I might need to make an adjustment in my approach. Those of you who remember the Finale music notation software, might notice that I had to put measure 4 (not counting the pickup) in Layer 2 instead of Layer 1.
Work in progress for typesetting Beethoven's Piano Sonata in D major, Opus 10, No. 3, in Finale 2010.
In the screenshot you don’t see the slurs that first clued me in that I had placed some of the right hand notes in the wrong layer. And don’t ask me to play this in public. All those octave doublings make me worry about making an extremely noticeable mistake.
I’ve chosen a recording by Martha Argerich. This recording is older than I am. The video is very crappy and the sound quality is marred by a constant hiss, but the performance is very good. And never mind, that’s moot, YouTube won’t let me embed the video.
I’m gonna go with Valentina Lisitsa instead. I guess she’s still going to be my go-to when my first choice is not available.
Opera fans: Please comment on weird ascetic opera productions you’ve witnessed in the opera open thread from Saturday. I’ll be keeping an eye on that one until comments are closed.
The question for today’s open thread: what’s your favorite performance of any of Beethoven’s Opus 10 piano sonatas?
