EXAMPLE FOR ANALYSIS, No. 18.
Beethoven: Piano Sonata, opus 13. Second movement.
This slow movement, a beautiful adagio cantabile in Beethoven's tranquilly serious mood, takes on the sectional form of the rondo, consisting of a theme (A), an episode (B), recurrence of the theme (A), a second episode (C), second recurrence of the theme (A), and brief codetta.
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FIGURE XLVIII.
The theme itself, filling only eight measures, but repeated at a higher pitch in the second eight measures, is a fine example of the variety in unity of Beethoven's melodies, secured only after much laborious sketching. It is shown in Figure XLVIII, and should be examined carefully. Almost every measure of it presents a new rhythm, so that there is none of the monotony of those themes which endlessly repeat a single rhythmic figure. (Compare the tunes of primitive savages shown in Chapter I.) Yet the whole melody is so deftly composed that its final impression of unity is perfect. The sequence form which the harmonies of the last four measures take contributes in no small degree to this impression of unity.
The theme being in the key of A-flat, both episodes are planned to give variety of key, the first (B—measures 17-28) being in the relative minor, F-minor, and the second (C—measures 37-50), beginning in A-flat minor and modulating, through E-major, back to the home-key.
With the third entrance of the main theme, the accompaniment takes the more animated rhythm of triplets; and these continue through the brief but delightful codetta (66-73).