A little Allegretto takes the place of the usual Minuet. It might be a dance of peasants, heard in the distance. The restless and passionate Presto is one of the finest movements in all the master's works.
Like the preceding Sonata, all the movements follow on without break. But there is a definite organic connection between them, the Finale, and the opening movement in particular. Compare the first four semiquavers of the Presto with the second quaver group of the Adagio, and the quaver chords in the second bar of the Presto with the melodic figure in bars 5 and 6 of the opening movement.
The second subject of the Finale has three well-defined sections, the first melodic, the second dolorous expressive chords, the third a souvenir of the first. The Coda is one of the most deeply expressive things Beethoven has ever written. It ends with a powerful gust of unpent passion.
15th Sonata, Opus 28, in D major.
Allegro—Andante—Scherzo—Rondo.
Dedicated to Joseph Eiden von Sonnenfels.
It was christened by the Hamburg publisher, Cranz, with the name of "Pastoral Sonata." The autograph is dated 1801, and the work is exceeding happy in mood, the last two movements almost boisterously so, the Finale being a mad gallop home. This Sonata has four movements, and it is most probable that it was written before the two Fantasia Sonatas. The first movement opens with a phrase of nine bars over a gentle tapping tonic pedal. It is a splendid specimen of development by elimination and condensation. In the middle portion, just before the recapitulation, the phrase seems almost to disappear into thin air.
The Andante in D minor, with its epigrammatic Trio in the tonic major, was once a great favourite with the composer. The Scherzo which despite its title is really a Minuet, is one of his happiest, and the Rondo is full of the joy of field and forest.