From what I can tell, Count Ferdinand Ernst Gabriel von Waldstein’s politics aligned with Beethoven’s. There is the famous story of how Beethoven admired Napoleon, but then Napoleon declared himself emperor and thus lost the dedication of a symphony that was then renamed “Eroica.” I don’t know if Waldstein ever admired Napoleon, but if he did, he sure didn’t after 1804.
It’s never enough for an emperor to rule his empire. The emperor wants to expand his empire to encompass the whole continent, the whole world, the whole galaxy, the universe if possible. For Emperor Napoleon, that meant his empire needed to include Germany and Austria.
Not if Waldstein had anything to say about that. According to Classic FM, Waldstein
believed passionately in Austria's ability — and duty — to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte's Revolutionary Army.
He frequently travelled to Vienna in fruitless attempts to persuade the Emperor to declare war. Finally, the Emperor, out of frustration and even anger, dismissed Waldstein from Imperial service and banished him from Vienna.
Waldstein tried to raise his own army to fight the French - bankrupting himself in the process. In 1805 he was reported to be back in Vienna, but in disguise to escape his creditors. In this year Beethoven - no doubt hearing of his misfortune - dedicated the opus 53 Piano Sonata to him.
But the sonata I want to talk about today, Opus 54, doesn’t have any dedication, though the close opus numbers suggest that maybe Beethoven had intended it to be part of a set of three with the Waldstein and the Appassionata. The whole set would have been published under one opus number and dedicated to Waldstein. But at this point in his life, Beethoven just couldn’t do that kind of thing anymore, as he had symphonies, concertos and other music also in the works.
Piano Sonata No. 22 in F major starts out fairly relaxed. This is not a beginning that commands the attention like the previous sonata, which we discussed last week. But, like the previous sonata, it also starts out with both hands to the left of middle C.
It doesn’t take long for Beethoven to launch into a very energetic passage that seem to point ahead to the Scherzo of the Ninth Symphony.
Or maybe I would have never made that connection if I had never heard Liszt’s arrangement of that symphony for solo piano…
Later on in this first movement there is another passage that sounds to me like another foreshadowing of the Ninth Symphony. And very faintly I also hear a foreshadowing of Bruckner’s Third Symphony.
No matter how you slice it, this sonata only has two movements. The finale is the logical transformation of the material of the first movement.
In a comment in last week’s open thread, Tippy and Dad likened this sonata to Chopin’s music and remarked that “its finale sounds like blues in parts.”
In my iTunes collection, I am familiar with the performances by Bruce Hungerford and Artur Schnabel. Alfred Brendel is a very recent addition to my collection.
For performances from YouTube, I decided on Daniel Baremboim.
But I really do also like Valentina Lisitsa’s faster interpretation.
As for a fortepiano performance, I’m going with Eric Zivian.
What do you think about this Beethoven sonata?
