What was thus given in the Waldstein was deepened and unified in the Appassionata (Op. 57). The uniform colouring of the Pathétique is here deepened by hints taken from the concerto. A sublime and rhythmical theme, based upon the simplest harmony, a solemn unison, dominates the first movement. The second theme, lyrical as it appears, is really only fashioned out of the first. As the movement progresses, we seem to hear mysterious winds, stormy seas, convulsions of nature. A cadenza, straight from the heart, leads to the most colossal stretto ever written: a wild upheaving, a sudden down-sinking and extinction. Its spiritual connection with the choral-like andante con moto is obvious. The note of aspiration is heard throughout, first by pauses, then by a clearer and clearer expression in those deeply-felt variations, which finally repeat their theme. The despair of the final movement is the last act—a giant melody, uttered in piercing cries, sinking down panting in the middle, and at the end breaking out into Bacchanalian revelry, in which laughter and ruin are inextricably mingled.
This was the most comprehensive tragic picture ever drawn by Beethoven on the piano; and it has therefore remained a unique composition. His works tell us that he outgrew the epoch in which misery is enjoyed. His tragic art leads us beyond despair not to Nirvana, but to the Elysian fields. Hymns of joy sound around him. Strong joy, Dionysian strength, was the aim of this Faust. What he once depicted in the wonderful monologue of Op. 27, 1, becomes his life. In the Elysian Fields the fugue of adolescence returns to him, giving him repose and safety. In it he allows the tragedy of Op. 106 to tower heavenwards. Or, ethereal, world-dissolving glories shine around him—these are the bright, cheerful phrases of the E major or A flat major Sonatas, in which they now give the theme, now the figuration, or in the scherzo, grow up in flowery profusion. Into this serenity he allows the tragedy of the last Sonata (Op. 111) to pass at last. After a movement of wild outcry come the simply resigned variations, which finally mount from dull earthly devotion to angelic harmonies, to end in the glitter of their smile, in the bright sphere of their unearthliness.
From Beethoven’s A flat major Sonata, Op. 26. Royal Musikbibliothek.
To understand the joyous Beethoven of later years we must remember the capricious Beethoven of youth. A strong leaven of cheerfulness lay in him, a healthy will, which knew how to be humorous.
The sportive Beethoven lies in the lap of Nature. There he hears the entrancing imitations of his Haydn Sonatas, the hurrying ghost-like scherzo with its Schubert-like romantic middle movement (Op. 10, 2), the sparkling Rondo of the Variation Sonata. This we must hear played by Risler in order to appreciate its inimitable humour and poetry, which is based entirely on the soft touch of the contrary motions. The most perfect of Nature prayers, a Pastoral Symphony on the pianoforte, is the Pastorale (Op. 28). Not only the second movement with its bird-like middle part; nor only the third with its extreme cheerfulness, nor the fourth with its outlook on the woods, its delight in the chase, its joyous conclusion; but also, and in the highest degree, the first movement, are confessions of Beethoven’s natural symbolism. This work stands on that indefinable border-line between the comic and the tragic, which is the unfailing mark of the intensest poetry. It is a complete picture of the world. Beethoven’s scherzi, his most peculiar form of art, which in the Sonata take the place of the old minuets, stand on this ground, and might be termed “secular,” in comparison with the dramatic embodiments of his first movements, or the complete picturings of the last.
The Rondos exhibit a similar process of alteration. In them first, so early as the time of Philip Emanuel Bach, had the capacity of tonic art to “let a theme speak,” been exercised. They allowed a theme its full expressive value. To Beethoven, accordingly, in his first period, such rondos appealed with the strongest effect, and their charming melodies throng in his earlier sonatas. But he was able to give this form a still deeper meaning. In place of the melodies he adopts genuine motives of pregnant brevity, which, as in Op. 10, 3, he develops with characteristic reserve. These pieces, as contrasted with the old melodic rondo, show a convincing naturalism. To the old rondo they are related as his scherzo to the minuet. Equally significant is his love for certain diatonically moving accompaniment figures, as in Op. 14, 1, or Op. 28; he thus avoids the impression of a regularly harmonised theme, and allows the naturalistic motive to predominate over the formal melody.
In the treatment of form in general, the sonatas exhibit a series of different experiments, which are of emotional interest. His other chamber music—the Violin Sonatas, the Trios, and all the rest, to which I now only allude—could not accomplish the suppression of form like the free, pure piano-pieces. The great Fantasia for chorus, orchestra, and piano (the latter treated in concerto fashion), which we value as an anticipation of the Ninth Symphony, was unique in its disregard of rule. Psychologically viewed, the sonata-form is much richer in content, and unravels the most wonderful mazes. Here is the history of the re-constituted sonata-form; a history which is too complicated to run in a straight line.
Down to Op. 10 on the whole we stand on the classical ground of the sonata. In the three Sonatas, Op. 10, appear the first important irregularities. Both in the first and in the second Sonatas there is, in the “free” part, a quite new theme introduced, which points to a definite design; and in the third we find that wonderful D minor movement, with its utter abandonment to melancholy, which by means of a stretto[114] in the Largo raises itself absolutely out of the contemporary style. Yet all this was new only in tone; it was no more absolutely new in idea than the Grave of the Pathétique or the Variation Sonata with its Marcia Funebre, where the middle section is introduced by means of realistic drum-reverberations.