Beginning Beethoven

The first page of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 1, from my beat-up Schenker edition 

For a long time, I have aspired to learn and eventually perform all of Ludwig van Beethoven's piano sonatas. I grew up hearing them and they have remained, after the keyboard works of Bach, probably the most influential works in my musical development. I think now is the time to start working on this massive undertaking in earnest. In this post, I will explain how I plan to approach this project.

Background

I worked on Beethoven's first sonata (Op. 2, No. 1) with my teacher David Zapka six or seven years ago, but I never manage to master its difficulties, owing partly to a lack of dedication and poor practice habits. A couple years later, I worked with him on the second sonata (Op. 2, No. 2), with essentially the same result - I got it "sort of" in my fingers, but never mastered it.

    I also worked with him on No. 20 in G Major, the easiest sonata. The story of how that came about is rather funny. I was preparing a recital under his guidance and as we were nearing the date, some works had to be removed that just weren't shaping up. The gap had to be filled somehow, so my teacher suggested a Mozart sonata. I preferred Beethoven, so I went looking for an "easy" Beethoven sonata that could be learned and memorized quickly. I came back the next week and played it for him, and he agreed that it would fit well in the recital. I was just happy to be playing Beethoven instead of Mozart....

    Besides those three, I have been working on the third sonata (Op. 2, No. 3) on and off for the past year. Last year I also worked just a little on the first and second movements of Opus 109 (the ethereal sonata that this blog is named after). I have played through (under tempo, of course) nearly all of the sonatas, so I'm fairly familiar with the distinct characteristics and difficulties of each sonata.

Editions

One of the biggest advantages that pianists of today have over previous generations is the widespread availability of many different editions, to which they can readily confer with a few clicks of the mouse. For each Beethoven sonata, there are pdf's on IMSLP of many editions, including the famous Schnabel edition and various "urtext" versions. Each one has different fingering suggestions for every kind of passage, from the simplest to the most complex and awkward. Additionally, there are those editors who take significant liberties in "revising," adding phrasing, dynamic and articulation markings. Alfredo Casella, whose edition I confer to often for fingering, has more revisions than any I have encountered. I mostly use the Casella and Schnabel editions for fingering and tempi.

    I find it fascinating to compare tempi suggestions of various editors. The very same movement is often rendered in drastically different speeds by different editors. Take the first movement of the Sonata in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3, which Beethoven marked "Allegro con brio." On the upper end, Schnabel recommends ♩ = 152, while Lamond writes ♩ = 132. I will write more about tempi in another post, but suffice it to say that I tend towards more moderate or slow tempi.

    In terms of what I'm working with, I have physical copies of the Beethoven complete sonatas edited by Heinrich Schenker, as well as a very old Henle urtext (edited by B. A. Wallner) of Volume I. As someone who is not extremely familiar with how the various editions rank on the reliability scale, I was pleased to encounter this statement in Robert Taub's book, Playing the Beethoven Piano Sonatas:

"Given the inaccuracies of the first editions and the loss of so many autograph manuscripts, what is a performer to do? Many editions of the Beethoven sonatas are available today, but I know of no editor more responsible than the respected theoretician Heinrich Schenker who supervised an edition for Universal Edition." (p. 82)

Taub then goes on to explain his process of comparing autographs, sketches, and first editions to inform his interpretive method. While I have no plans to be that scrupulous in my research of these works, it is nice to know that Schenker is considered a very reliable source. His is also one of the most affordable complete editions of the sonatas currently available. I only wish the Schenker edition was available in hardcover, since I would like to eventually get a set that will last for many years.

The Schenker edition, published by Dover

There is something missing in the editions I've mentioned, however. Beethoven actually wrote more than the traditionally enumerated 32 piano sonatas. There are three others, the Kurfürstensonaten ("Prince-elector Sonatas"), WoO 47, composed and published in 1783 when Beethoven was 12 years old. One reason most pianists today are unaware of these sonatas is that subsequent editors decided to call them "sonatinas" (evidently because the canon was already set at 32, and they figured it would cause too much confusion to mess with it). Nevertheless, they are full-length sonatas (by the standards of 1783) and were published as such.

    The mere fact that Beethoven did not assign them opus numbers or acknowledge them among his body of sonatas is not relevant, in my opinion. They are full-fledged piano sonatas, and they were composed by Beethoven. Therefore, they are part of the complete collection, and the Beethoven sonata corpus consists of 35 sonatas rather than the traditional 32. A project to learn all the Beethoven sonatas should include all of the Beethoven sonatas.

    Further, that these three sonatas are not representative of Beethoven's "mature" style is also irrelevant. In the first place, what exactly is "mature" Beethoven? His Opus 2 sonatas are drastically different in their style and level of artistic inspiration than his last three (Opp. 109-111), yet no one suggests that we erase the early sonatas from the record. The whole idea behind the Beethoven sonatas is one of continual exploration and development. Beethoven used the piano sonata in a particular way to work out his increasingly unconventional musical ideas, and that development began with the Kurfürstensonaten.

    With all of this in mind, I will be learning all 35 of the Beethoven sonatas, using the Schenker and Kalmus editions and frequently conferring to others like Schnabel and Casella.

For the Kurfürstensonaten, I went with the Kalmus "Sonatinas" album (only three of its six pieces are actually sonatinas)

Practice Strategies

Getting started

The first thing I do when learning a new piece is just to become as familiar with it as I can, particularly in terms of its formal structural. Listening to recordings, watching score videos, and reading whatever I can find about the work is all part of the process. Formal and harmonic analyses of Beethoven's sonatas are easy to find, so I will be taking advantage of those. There are also plenty of highly regarded books about Beethoven's sonatas, by Donald Francis Tovey, Charles Rosen, Stewart Gordon, and others. I plan to read these books as I go along. I'm currently reading Taub's book, where he gives his perspective as a performer of the sonatas (far more interesting to me than a dry, scholarly text).

Recordings

I draw a lot of inspiration from listening to a wide range of recordings (both studio and live). Given the status of Beethoven's sonatas, there are a great number of wonderful performances and recordings out there. Schnabel is almost synonymous with Beethoven, but there's also Arrau (one of my favorites), Barenboim, Kempff, and many others. I am currently working on making YouTube score videos for all of the sonatas using Irina Mejoueva's lesser known but masterful complete cycle (recorded in 2020). After Mejoueva, Richard Goode has probably my favorite recording of the complete cycle. Although Emil Gilels left his Beethoven sonata cycle incomplete with his death, he had some of the best interpretations I've heard (Opp. 101 and 109 stand out in a special way.)

Fingering

I already mentioned above how I use the various editions on IMSLP to compare fingering options. I am very particular about the fingering that I use for even simple passages. This can be a weakness for sure; sometimes I spend too much time testing various fingerings when the easiest option is right there in front of me. On the whole, however, I think it's a strength. Fingering can make a big difference in the shape of a phrase; it's not just about finding the easiest way to execute a particular passage. One thing I appreciate about the Schenker edition is that he provides a lot of fingering, and sometimes two different options for the same passage. While I think some of Schenker's fingering is unnecessarily complicated, I have also come to understand Beethoven's phrasing better through trying them out.

Memorization

Another big part of this process will be memorization. Since I want to eventually perform all of the sonatas, memorizing will be essential. Even if I perform with the sheet music, it will be important for me to know the music inside and out, and this includes memorization. Rather than waiting until the piece is already "in my fingers," I will try to memorize as I go along, internalizing all the markings in the score. Already being familiar with the structure of each movement will expedite the process.

Everything Else

Besides mapping the structure of the sonatas, meticulously working out fingering, and memorizing, I will use all the standard practice techniques that I know (using a metronome, going slowly at first, rote repetition, varying dynamics and articulation, etc.). I still have a lot to learn about practicing, and a lot of practice discipline to gain, so this project will be a great learning experience in that regard. Below is a short clip of me practicing the Rondo of Op. 2/2.

Where to Start

Pianists interested in Beethoven often ask, "What are the easiest and the most difficult Beethoven sonatas?" I'm putting aside for a moment the endless debate of what really makes a piece of music difficult, or if there is such a thing as an "easy" Beethoven sonata. For now, those sonatas which require the kind of technique (i.e., the actual mechanics of playing) that only professionals or high skilled amateurs possess are "difficult," and the ones that are at least attainable for lesser skilled players are "easy." I won't be considering interpretive difficulty. As troublesome as it is to quantify mechanical difficulty, that is all the more the case with difficulties of interpretation.

    The Sonata Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier") is almost universally considered the most technically demanding sonata that Beethoven wrote, while the Opus 49 set are viewed as the easiest. The late sonatas, in general, rank among the more difficult. Other sonatas often ranked among the most difficult include the "Waldstein" and the "Appassionata." The three juvenilia sonatas (WoO 47) are on the easier side, comparable to Op. 49, though perhaps a little more difficult. The trouble is ranking the sonatas that stand somewhere in between. All one needs to do is look at this forum thread to see that it depends very much on who you ask.

In the G. Schirmer edition, Sigmund Lebert gives the following ranking, in order of ascending difficulty:

1. Sonata No. 20 in G Major, Op. 49, No. 2
2. Sonata No. 19 in G Minor, Op. 49, No. 1
3. Sonata No. 25 in G Major, Op. 79 ("Cuckoo")
4. Sonata No. 9 in E Major, Op. 14, No. 1
5. Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 14, No. 2
6. Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1
7. Sonata No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 1
8. Sonata No. 8 in C Minor, Op. 13 ("Pathétique")
9. Sonata No. 7 in D Major, Op. 10, No. 3
10. Sonata No. 6 in F Major, Op. 10, No. 2
11. Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28 ("Pastorale")
12. Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3
13. Sonata No. 12 in A-flat Major, Op. 26 ("Funeral March")
14. Sonata No. 18 in E-flat Major, Op. 31, No. 3 ("The Hunt")
15. Sonata No. 11 in B-flat Major, Op. 22
16. Sonata No. 4 in E-flat Major, Op. 7
17. Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27, No. 2 ("Moonlight")
18. Sonata No. 13 in E-flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1 ("Quasi una Fantasia")
19. Sonata No. 17 in D Minor, Op. 31, No.2 ("Tempest")
20. Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 2 No. 2
21. Sonata No. 22 in F Major, Op. 54
22. Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 ("Für Thérèse")
23. Sonata No. 27 in E Minor, Op. 90
24. Sonata No. 26 in E-flat Major, Op. 81a ("Les Adieux")
25. Sonata No. 16 in G Major, Op. 31, No. 1
26. Sonata No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 ("Waldstein")
27. Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57 ("Appassionata")
28. Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101
29. Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111
30. Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
31. Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
32. Sonata No. 29 in B-flat Major, Op. 106 ("Hammerklavier")

The sonatas that fall somewhere in the middle are what makes lists like Lebert's most interesting. I was surprised to see Opus 31, No. 1 placed so high, while Opus 2, No. 3 seems rather low. Overall, lists like these are merely interesting, but they won't have much influence the order that I learn the sonatas. I'm going to wait until I've played a good number of the early and middle period sonatas before attempting the late sonatas, although this has as much to do with interpretive difficulties as with technique. I think it's important not to get bogged down in questions of technical difficulty. At the end of the day, all the Beethoven sonatas are quite difficult, and so it's more a question of which I feel most interested in learning at the time. And that leads to the next part of this article...

My 2024 Goals

I plan to learn and memorize the following sonatas by the end of this year. First, the Opus 2 set:

1. Sonata No. 1 in F Minor, Op. 2, No. 1
2. Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 2, No. 2
3. Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 2, No. 3

Then, once those are performance ready, I will start work on:

1. Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78 ("À Thérèse")
2. Sonata No. 25 in G Major, Op. 79 ("Cuckoo")

After these, I will go back in time again to early Beethoven and work on:

1. Sonata in E-flat Major, WoO 47, No. 1
2. Sonata No. 19 in G Minor, Op. 49, No. 1
3. Sonata No. 20 in G Major, Op. 49, No. 2

To end the year, I thought it would be nice to work on two of Beethoven's more intimate and melodic sonatas:

1. Sonata No. 10 in G Major, Op. 14, No. 2
2. Sonata No. 15 in D Major, Op. 28 ("Pastorale")

The Opus 2 sonatas have always had a special place for me among Beethoven's works, and they are the first three sonatas (numerically at least), so it was always a given that I would start with these to begin this project. They are also the most difficult of the ten that I will be working on this year, so the climb gets easier from here (at least temporarily...). Opus 78 is one of my favorites (definitely a contender for my #2 spot after Op. 109); the opening bars are, to me, one of the most uplifting moments in Beethoven's music. Opp. 78 and 79 pair well together because of their proximity, despite their very different keys and atmospheres. The rondo of Opus 79 has something of an ethereal quality to my ears, perhaps because it uses the same chord progression as the opening of Opus 109.

    WoO 47, No. 1 is Beethoven's true first piano sonata and a charming work. Beethoven never sounded so Viennese as in this sonata. I think it will provide a nice refreshment after struggling through Opus 2 and Opus 78. The Opus 49 set is very short and accessible, so I figured, "why not learn those early on so I have fewer sonatas to get to?". I already learned and performed Opus 49, No. 2 in 2019 (see below), so it will just be a matter of refreshing and polishing that one. Opus 14, No. 2 is also an easier sonata. The first movement is profoundly lyrical and the next two movements are rather humorous. I have always thought the "Pastorale" sonata is underrated. It is certainly one of the best from Beethoven's early period. There is something about the steady, repeated quarter notes of the bass that captivate the listener from the very start.

Conclusion

I hope to record and upload the Opus 2, No. 2 in A Major by the end of the summer, and possibly perform the entire Opus 2 set this Autumn. In the meantime, all I can offer is this unworthy performance of Beethoven's easiest sonata, Opus 49, No. 2 in G Major, that I gave in a recital five years ago...

That's all for now.