Is the unity here merely one which great familiarity with the work as a whole may account for? One can point to no logical incompleteness in any one of the movements. Is their union in our mind essentially one of association? It is more than that. There is a single emotion underlying the work as a whole, which must seek further and different utterance than the first movement affords it; which the second movement may belie but not extinguish; to which only the fantastic coda of the last movement gives ultimate release.
In both these sonatas there is a unity which cannot be destroyed. In both, however, it is artistic rather than organic, and this may be said of the subsequent sonatas up to opus 101. This, and the three succeeding sonatas, seem almost to be musical dramas, more than tone poems. They are huge allegories in music. The form which they take is one which is built up note by note out of the conflict of vast forces, natural or spiritual powers, rather than human emotions. Three of them work up to great fugues. The other two, opus 109 and opus 111, to towering series of variations.
One may take the sonata in A-flat, opus 110, for analysis. The first movement, in very simple triplex form, is seemingly complete in itself. Yet there is something mystical and visionary about it. The two themes out of which it is constructed seem to float in the air; but there is suggestion in the transitional sections and in the development sections of inchoate forces in the deep. The whole movement rather whispers than speaks. It is a mystery. There follows immediately an allegro in F minor, a harsh presentment, as it were, of human energy spent for naught. There are snatches of a trivial, popular song; there is a trio made up of one long, down-hill run, repeated over and over again, coming down only to be tossed high again by a sharply accented chord; a restless agitation throughout, ironical, even cynical. The end comes suddenly with crashing chords out of time, and, finally, a quick breathing out, as if the whole vanished in air. It is an extraordinary movement, seeming instantaneous. One is amazed and bewildered after it.
Then comes a passage in the character of recitative. The whole mood becomes intensely sorrowful, grief-stricken, tragic. A melody full of anguish mounts up, the cry of bitter hopelessness, endless suffering. It ceases and is followed by a silence. Out of this rises in single notes, pianissimo, a voice, as it were, of hope and strength. It is woven into a fugue as if in only such discipline were there promise of victory, not for Beethoven alone, but for the human race.
The fugue rises to a climax, but only to be broken off by an abrupt and boding modulation. Once again the anguished voice is heard, now broken with weariness (ermattend, in Beethoven’s own expression). The section is in G minor. When the melody ceases the music seems to beat faintly on in single notes. Suddenly there is a soft chord of G major. The effect is one of the most beautiful Beethoven ever conceived. And then the chords follow each other, swelling to great force. Hushed at first, the fugue speaks again. This time the melody is inverted. Extraordinary mastery of the science of music is now brought to bear upon weaving a fitting and glorious ending to the great work. The fugue subject in its original intervals is employed in diminution as a background of counterpoint against which the same subject, in augmentation, rises into greater and greater prominence. The music gains in strength. It mounts higher and higher; at last it seems to blaze in triumph.
Here is a sonata which seems to have an organic life. The whole work is not only expressive of varied and powerful emotions, it seems to build itself out of the conflict that goes on between them. One is hardly conscious in listening that it may be divided into movements. One hears the unfolding of a single mighty work. And in this case, be it noted, the effect has little to do with thematic relationships between the various movements.
By thus filling a conventional group of movements with one and the same life, Beethoven brought the sonata to a height beyond which it can never go. It may, indeed, be asked whether these last works are sonatas, whether they be not some new form. Yet the steps by which they evolved are clear, and in them all there are manifold traces of their origin. There is no other literature for the pianoforte comparable to them in scope and power. The special quality of their inspiration each must judge for himself, whether it move him, appeal to him, suit his taste in beauty of sound. But to that inspiration no one can deny a grandeur and nobility, a heroic proportion unique in pianoforte music.
V
The sonatas, from first to last, are Beethoven’s chief contribution to this special branch of music. Two of the five concertos have held their place beside these, the fourth in G major and the fifth in E-flat major. The huge proportions of the latter will probably not impress so much as they have in years past. It is commonly called the ‘Emperor’ concerto. In the first movement there are many measures which give an impression of more or less perfunctory, intellectual working-out. The middle movement is inspired throughout, and the modulation from B major to the dominant harmony of E-flat major just before the final rondo is wonderfully beautiful. The subject of the rondo has a gigantic vigor. The G major concerto is of much more delicate workmanship and, from the point of view of sheer beauty of sound, is more effective to modern ears. The treatment of the solo instrument is more consistently pianistic, adds more in special color, therefore, to the beauty of the whole. The slow movement fulfills an ideal of the concerto which up to that time and even later has been almost ignored. It is a dialogue, a dramatic conversation between the orchestra and the piano, the one seeming to typify some dark power of fate, the other man. Its beauty is matchless. It is worthy of remark that both the G major and the E-flat major concertos begin with passages for the solo instrument.
Besides the sonatas and the concertos Beethoven published several sets of shorter pieces, rondos, dances, variations, and ‘Bagatelles.’ They are hardly conspicuous, and, in comparison with the longer works, are insignificant. The thirty-three variations on a waltz theme of A. Diabelli, published in 1823 as opus 120, are marvellous as a tour de force of musical skill; second, however, to the Goldberg Variations of Bach, to which they seem to owe several features. Is it possible that a variation like the twenty-eighth owes something to Weber as well?