Beethoven, L. Van: Piano Sonata No. 31 Behind The Notes - Boris Giltburg Introduces Piano Sonata No. 31

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The last three sonatas were neither the last piano pieces Beethoven would write - he followed them with the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 and the 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126 - nor were they his final work...

The last three sonatas were neither the last piano pieces Beethoven would write - he followed them with the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 and the 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126 - nor were they his final works in the sonata form - those would be the late string quartets. But after Op. 111 Beethoven's path did not lead him back to the piano sonata genre. In strong contrast to the Hammerklavier, where the bulging, straining creative muscles are evident in every note, the last three sound like an uninhibited stream of inspiration, captured mid-flow by Beethoven and shaped and moulded by him until they appear to us as near miraculous acts of effortless creation. Whereas the Hammerklavier feels probing, exploring, challenging, the last three are completely at ease with themselves, reflecting not the struggles of a creative genius trying to unfetter himself from all convention, but the poetic utterances of a composer who has gone so far ahead of us that one cannot but feel awe facing these inimitable musical worlds, and gratitude at having been granted access to them. Much unites the three sonatas, besides the overall sense of transcendence suffusing the music. Structurally, they all lead towards their respective finales. All three incorporate large vocally-imagined movements or episodes - a 'song with the most heartfelt emotion' in Op. 109, a lamenting arioso in Op. 110, and the simply named Arietta as the magnificent theme of Op. 111's finale. All three are also obsessed with polyphonic writing - a growing interest of Beethoven in his late years. It's most overt in Op. 110, which contains two fully fledged fugues in its finale, but polyphonic sections abound in both Opp. 109 and 111 as well.

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