We finally reach the conclusion of the journey. In strong contrast to the Hammerklavier, where the bulging, straining creative muscles are evident in every note, the last three sound like an uninhibited stream of inspiration, captured mid-flow by Beethoven and shaped and moulded by him until they appear to us as near-miraculous acts of effortless creation. The last three are completely at ease with themselves, reflecting not the struggles of a creative genius trying to unfetter himself from all convention, but the poetic utterances of a composer who has gone so far ahead of us that one cannot but feel awe facing these inimitable musical worlds, and gratitude at having been granted access to them.
The variations that form the finale of Op. 111, are a single, continuous narrative. This movement is for me one of the greatest of Beethoven’s creations - all-encompassing, utterly beautiful and endlessly deep. The theme, belied by its name (Arietta - ‘a short aria’), is a prolonged slow melody, defined by its opening motif of three notes. Though universal and timeless in its message, it nonetheless touches a very personal world in its second half, set in the relative minor key.
The first three variations that follow are, for me, a gradual awakening to life, culminating in the boundless drive of the third (15:29), encapsulating the exuberance of youth, drunk on happiness and on the impossibility of defeat. (I respectfully but resolutely refuse to hear this variation as ‘jazz’, ‘ragtime’ or ‘boogie-woogie’ music, as it is often described - for me it is not a merrily unhinged ‘stomping dance’, but music that is completely and tightly held together, and moreover logically follows the stepwise doubling of speed in each preceding variation.)
Thereafter the movement makes a decisive turn: all earthly matters are left behind, and Beethoven embarks on a journey in very distant lands, be it outer space, or the farthermost reaches of the soul. An expansive double variation (17:24) - its first half in the depths of the keyboard, its second floating at stratospheric heights - is followed by a transition and then a standstill: a long trill appears, and the main motif is restated several times, above and below it. The trill gradually becomes the music itself, and the two hands separate, getting as far apart as was physically possible on Beethoven’s keyboard - a sound effect thoroughly modern in its sparseness. A modulatory section follows, the only instance of Beethoven leaving the home key of C major in this movement; as if to make up for lost time, those ten bars cover a wide array of keys: a shifting, unstable harmonic world - but then how heart-warming the homecoming that follows!
That homecoming is both a recapitulation, with the theme restated in full, and a further development, building up to a powerful climax. The heart overflows - and at the point of utmost fullness, a trill returns, becoming the core of the final, ethereal variation. It is probably the only possible continuation at this point, the trill simultaneously being the highest intensification of movement, and its complete absence.
At the movement’s end, after the final farewells seem to have been said, a duet of figurations appears, soaring higher and higher to reach the highest note of this movement - a high C - and immediately descending towards the final, sparse appearances of the main motif, and the gentle, nearly pastoral closing chords.
This high C, which appeared several times in the first movement - typical of Beethoven, who regularly writes at the extreme edges of the keyboard - has not been played even once in the second movement prior to that moment. It is impossible to know whether we can attribute importance, or indeed premeditation, to such ‘statistics’, but coming at the very end it seems
to me to stand for something transcendent, which we, having made the arduous, transforming journey, are finally capable of touching for the briefest of moments - though never of holding permanently.
And this, for me, symbolises the movement itself, standing at the closure of the entire sonata cycle: its profound truths both alluringly simple and tantalisingly elusive. I believe it can never be held or known, not really, not fully. There is tremendous satisfaction to be derived from travelling the paths, and an even greater one if at a certain performance a small glimpse of these truths can be gained, but always more remains to be found: similar to the complete cycle of 32 sonatas, it is an endless quest, a life’s worth of soul-enriching searching
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Beethoven 32 - Over the course of 2020, I have learned and filmed all 32 Beethoven sonatas. Subscribe to this channel or visit beethoven32.com to follow the project.
Boris Giltburg, piano
Filmed by Stewart French
© 2021 Fly On The Wall, London
@FazioliPianos
27 сен 2024
