Leonne Lewis has been a Consulting Editor for Clavier magazine and has a varied career as pianist, music journalist, and lecturer on musical subjects. Her contributions have appeared in Strings, Strad, and the Wiener Zeitung newspaper of Vienna. Leonne holds BA and MA degrees in piano performance from the University of Southern California and California State University Long Beach.
The thirty-two piano sonatas of Beethoven form a pillar in the foundation of the piano repertoire, along with works such as Bach‘s Well-Tempered Clavier and the Chopin Etudes. Beethoven‘s revelatory pieces, written during the years 1795-1822, provide a rewarding experience for students, performers, and listeners. Like any great monument of civilization, they provide seemingly endless material for opinions, analysis, and scholarly discussion.
Since the sonatas‘ creation, major artists have devoted significant time and effort to the promotion of these important works. Franz Liszt introduced Paris audiences to the “Hammerklavier” in 1836. In 1927, a century after the composer‘s death, Artur Schnabel gave a historic performance of the complete cycle in Berlin. Eight years later, Schnabel became the first to record all thirty-two, a recording that has never been out of print during its seventy-fiveyear existence. Schnabel‘s recording, along with those of Kempff, Arrau, Brendel, Gulda, Schiff, Ohlsson, and others, have provided pianists and music lovers alike with thought-provoking interpretations and insights.
Valuable sources on the sonatas are not limited to audio recordings. Useful commentary on studying the sonatas can be found in a work by Beethoven‘s student, Czerny,1 in addition to more contemporary writings by authors including, among others, Ferdinand Ries, William S. Newman, and Charles Rosen. These documents confirm the impression that Beethoven was a visionary who introduced a range of ideas and new sounds on the keyboard. Certainly, the “Pathetique,” “Tempest,” “Hammerklavier,” and Op. 111 plunge the pianist into a unique sonic environment. Edwin Fischer writes that Beethoven‘s piano works span an arch “stretching from Christian and Philipp Emanuel Bach, touching the world of Mozart, absorbing the intensity of Haydn and Clementi, culminating in the great compositions of Op. 53 and Op. 57, and eventually turning more and more towards the transcendental.”2
Visiting Vienna
Beethoven enjoyed a close relationship with Vienna, where his career and reputation were significantly linked. With that in mind, I visited the musical city last summer to hear the 2009 International Beethoven Piano Competition and speak with renowned pianistscholars Paul Badura-Skoda, Elisabeth Leonskaja, and Martin Hughes, all of whom shared fascinating insights and helpful ideas for approaching the sonatas.
A profound and versatile musician and scholar, Vienna-born Paul Badura-Skoda‘s discography includes the complete cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas. England native Martin Hughes is currently professor of piano and Chair of Keyboard Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He has performed all the Beethoven sonatas and written the article, “Beethoven‘s Piano Music: Contemporary Performance Issues.”3 Elisabeth Leonskaja was trained in Moscow, and her worldwide career includes performances with Kurt Masur and the Guarneri Quartet, awards for her numerous recordings (including the Diapason d ‘Or prize for works of Liszt), and concerts that highlight the Beethoven piano concertos and late sonatas.
Perhaps the greatest challenge in the sonatas is finding an interpretation that will honor Beethoven‘s original intent and clarify underlying issues of tempo, pedaling, and articulation.
“Not only Edwin Fischer, whom I studied with, but also Beethoven‘s student Carl Czerny said that if you want to play the composer‘s music really well, you must be familiar with nearly everything he wrote. Beethoven gives you the material, but you have to co-compose it, analyze it, and put it together to create a worthwhile performance,” says Paul Badura- Skoda.
Tempo choices
There is no better test of a pianist‘s understanding of a work than the ability to choose the right tempo for it. Much has been written and debated about the subject, including the interesting article by Rudolf Kolisch, “Tempo and Character in Beethoven‘s Music.” 4 Despite Beethoven‘s large oeuvre of works, he only added metronome markings to a limited number, including the symphonies and one piano sonata, the Op. 106.
Beethoven was preoccupied with the tempo of his compositions and responded enthusiastically to the debut of Johann Maelzel‘s metronome in 1815. But tempo meant more to him than just a mechanical measurement, as he indicated to publisher Schott in 1826. “We can have almost no further tempi ordinari since one must respond to the call of unconstrained genius.”5 How can we then choose a tempo that will satisfy what Beethoven had in mind? I asked our trio of experts.
“First and most important, tempo does not equal speed but refers to the character of a piece of music. For example, when Allegro appassionato is written, I look for that character to be found in the music,” says Leonskaja. She notes that in the Rondo of the Op. 53 sonata, “The first thing to consider is the broadly spaced harmony in comparison to the quick pulse. In the first movement of Op. 57, one can look to the triplets, key, bass movement, and middle voice with a similar approach, but a different result.” She also recommends that students read Jürgen Uhde‘s book, Beethoven‘s Klaviermusik,6 to learn more about tempo relationships.
Hughes offers a straightforward and informative solution to the tempo dilemma. “I don‘t believe in metronome markings and don‘t have a lot of faith in metronomes either, but I do agree with Kolisch that a tempo is an integral part of the structure of the music. I have a particular way of finding tempi in Beethoven, which is based almost entirely on the left hand. The character of a piece in classical music is almost always in the left hand, and what happens in the right hand is a matter of choice.”
The question of Beethoven‘s tempo markings in the “Hammerklavier” sonata may cause pianists to rethink learning it. “If people in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries didn‘t understand the metronome markings of the great composers, they said their metronome went awry. But not every metronome can be wrong,” says Badura- Skoda. For example, he says that the metronome marking for the Scherzo and even the Fugue of Op. 106 is right, especially since many pianists nowadays have the facility for it.
Both Badura-Skoda and Hughes find the first movement‘s fast tempo marking (the half note = 138) to be in contradiction to the Allegro indication. “Perhaps Beethoven imagined the movement in his mind but didn‘t realize that hammers need a certain time to react and repeat. I recommend playing it twelve percent slower, otherwise you lose sense of it,” says Badura- Skoda. Hughes mentions, “A Viennese musician once told me that the relationship between the marking above the score (Allegro, Presto) and the time signature is not really a relationship. An Allegro, for example is a feeling one gets from hearing the music being played.”
Late Beethoven
The complexities of Beethoven‘s late sonatas are well known, and Hughes makes an observation about this period in the composer‘s life. “What is interesting in late Beethoven is not what he has done that is new, but what he has taken from his previous works. In a composer that is so key oriented, every work he writes in F minor, for instance, has certain characteristics which will appear in all of his works in that key.”
Leonskaja‘s thoughts about the composer‘s final sonata, Op. 111, convey a philosophical kinship with the composer and the work‘s meaning. “I needed a long time to approach Op. 111, during which I read and pondered Thomas Mann‘s Doctor Faustus.7 In spite of the simplicity this work radiates, it is far from conventional. Much reflection is needed to allow the Arietta movement to develop in a logical line with poetic background and foreground.”
An intriguing problem is the proper execution of the series of tied right-hand notes in m. 5 of the Adagio ma non troppo of Op. 110. A detailed explanation of this can be found in Badura-Skoda‘s article “A tie is a tie is a tie.”8 “The same kind of ties appear in Beethoven‘s Grosse Fuge (for String Quartet, Op. 133), and I have not heard one string player who repeats the second note after the tie. I am glad you asked me this, so readers may play it in the right way,” says Badura-Skoda.
Leonskaja gives a compelling impression of the Op. 110‘s Adagio ma non troppo and fugue sections. “I try to selflessly follow the sentiment. Although Beethoven is not sentimental, he expresses strong feelings throughout every twist and turn of the melody, bass, pulse, and movement of the harmony. The fugue evolves out of nowhere into the light and joy of creation. The answer which follows is pure spirit and soul. And all of this was conceived during his complete deafness.”
Pedaling
Matters of pedaling in Beethoven are sometimes more controversial than conversational, but Badura-Skoda mentions that the Rondo of Op. 53 should be played as Beethoven indicated. “What he created was a futuristic sound, a mixing of harmonies into one another, particularly with the pedal point of C and G in the bass.” He remarks that it is easier to create this kind of pedal effect on a modern piano, because the action allows more subtle control of dynamics than a piano of Beethoven‘s time.
Dynamics
In re-examining the opening chord of the familiar “Pathetique” sonata with its fp marking, Badura-Skoda notes that there are two ways of playing it. The first approach is indicated in Czerny‘s book on proper performance, where the first chord is marked forte and the second piano. “Gulda and Fischer played it as a forte-piano, which means that the first chord diminishes in a somewhat artificial way.” Hughes explains, “I see the sf in the beginning of the “Pathetique” to be a change of dynamic. Beethoven‘s other sforzandi are more problematic because they indicate a lot of different things such as the changing of a bar or indication of a bar line.”
Leonskaja recommends that pianists listen to Beethoven‘s symphonies and quartets so the emotional meaning of dynamics like fp or sfp become more apparent. “Each pianist uses a different palette of sound when they play, but the basis for this tone color should be a consideration of the text.”
Editions
A pianist‘s ability to decipher the text often depends on the edition used, and while both Badura-Skoda and Hughes admire Schnabel‘s edition as an historical reference, they point to shortcomings in his ideas of excessive tempo changes and articulation. “Schnabel was a great interpreter, but he was a nineteenth-century pianist. People then were preoccupied by what I call the religion of the legato. In nearly every fast passage, Schnabel automatically puts in a legato slur, and that is historically and physically wrong. Beethoven, like Mozart, made an enormous distinction between legato and non-legato or non-ligato, which was the old Italian way of writing it,” says Badura-Skoda.
Regarding editions, Badura-Skoda considers Henle to be the best available for the piano sonatas. He also encourages students to consult the Wiener Urtext edition of Schenker and Ratz and advises that not every new edition is superior to the older version. Hughes prefers the Peters edition, edited by Martienssen, and comments that Kempff, whom he studied with at Positano used it as well. “The great thing about Beethoven is that it‘s a self-help school. You can teach yourself how to play his music if you sit down with the scores and spend time reading them. It‘s the best way to learn,” says Hughes.
Leonskaja offers a thought from Heinrich Neuhaus, a great teacher in the powerful Russian musical tradition. “He often told his students, ‘Look at the text, as everything is there.‘ One must learn to read the text, and when we become fully aware of all the composer‘s markings that help us to comprehend the music, then and only then will we feel freer,” she says.
In discussing Beethoven‘s use of variation form in sonatas such as Op. 26 and Op. 109, Hughes notes that the composer used this compositional device with great conviction. “The finest example is the Diabelli Variations, but in the opening bars of the first sonata (Op. 2, No. 1) we have a variation in the very first line, and the idea is then developed into tiny motives. In the Op. 10, No. 3 sonata, there is a thematic relationship in all four movements where Beethoven illuminates the motive from the beginning of the first movement by integrating it into each of the movements.”
Instruments
Czerny wrote, “Since Beethoven‘s manner of playing as well as composing was ahead of its time, the weak and imperfect fortepianos of his time could not withstand his gigantic style.”9 Would Beethoven have written differently on a modern piano? As it was, he worked closely with piano manufacturers to initiate improvements that would benefit the demands of his compositions.
Badura-Skoda deduces from his knowledge of well-restored fortepianos that the instruments Beethoven and other composers used were acceptable to their needs. “Beethoven was never satisfied and always asked for more. During his lifetime the piano had developed enormously as it became louder, and the extension of the keyboard was nearly two octaves longer. He was asked to re-write his earlier sonatas for the extended keyboard, but he never did.” Badura-Skoda continues, “Speaking of historically correct performances, Friedrich Gulda said, ‘I‘m not playing for an audience of two-hundred years ago. I‘m playing for an audience of today.‘”
Hughes points out that Beethoven was a composer who always wrote for new instruments and was constantly striving for something he couldn‘t reach. “Mozart was not generally circumscribed by the instruments he played and made beautiful music on any instrument. Beethoven‘s psyche was romantic. He was not in the business of beautiful music but in the business of breaking new ground.”
Beethoven‘s playing
One can get a glimpse of Beethoven‘s playing from Friedrich Wieck (Clara Schumann‘s father), who visited the composer in 1824 and wrote, “He played in a flowing and genial manner, for the most part orchestrally.”10 How literally do we take these captivating observations and should they influence our interpretation of Beethoven? “This is the type of question that has occupied researchers of the Bible for two thousand years. We take every word as being sincere and of greatest value. But, regarding Beethoven, it would be natural to have different accounts of his playing, because he certainly didn‘t always play the same work in the same way,” says Badura-Skoda.
Hughes comments that although we can never really discover how Beethoven played, “The text is the most important and the only guideline we have. In the case of Beethoven, we are talking about music that is highly complex with enormous requirements on the performer, which are all quite clear to see in the text. The music often requires that we play orchestrally.”
Badura-Skoda remarks that, since there were no recordings available, Czerny and others provide vital sources of information about the composer‘s playing. “One statement which touched me described the last time Beethoven played for a select group of people. He was already very hard of hearing, but instead of banging the piano, he played so softly that the notes hardly responded. I think this delicacy of Beethoven is often lost in modern performance. People think he was always furious, but he could be a most tender person.”
References
1 Badura-Skoda, P., (Ed.). (1963). Carl Czerny: On the proper performance of all Beethoven‘s works for the piano. Vienna: Universal Edition.
2 Fischer, E. (1959). Beethoven‘s pianoforte sonatas: A guide for students and amateurs (S. Goodwin,Trans.). London: Faber, p. 55.
3 Hughes, M. (1994). Beethoven‘s piano music: Contemporary performance issues. In Performing Beethoven: Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice, 4, 228-239.
4 Kolisch, R. (1943).Tempo and character in Beethoven‘s music. The Musical Quarterly, 29 (2), 169-187 and 29 (3), 291-312.
5 Rosen, C. (2002). Beethoven‘s piano sonatas: A short companion. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 44.
6 Uhde J. (2000). Beethoven‘s Klaviermusik. Stuttgart: Reclam.
7 Mann,T. (1992). Doctor Faustus (1st ed., 1948). New York: Random House.
8 Badura-Skoda, P. (1988). A tie is a tie is a tie. Reflections on Beethoven‘s pairs of tied notes. Early Music, 16 (1), 84-88.
9 From page 22 of the German edition of Carl Czerny‘s On the proper performance of all Beethoven‘s works for the piano.
10 Sonneck, O. (Ed.). (1967). Beethoven: Impressions by his contemporaries (1st ed., 1926). New York: Dover.
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