[music] So, given that the first two movements of the sonata have so little in common – other than an interest in counterpoint, which is really rather faint in the first movement – when the march comes to a close, the work of unifying the piece into a coherent whole remains ahead of us. This happens in emphatic, revolutionary fashion with the last movement. This titanic movement is, in fact, two movements – or even three, depending on how you count – joined into one extraordinary whole: a brief slow movement, an interlude, and a proper finale. All this is played without a pause, and I think it is properly thought of as one movement, for reasons that will become apparent – one enormous movement, which takes longer to play than the first movement and the march, combined. The enormousness of the movement is not only, or even primarily, a function of its length: despite the remarkable character of the first movement, the emotional heart and the goal point of the work lie here, yet another sense in which the sonata so clearly belongs to the late period. The slow movement...introduction...section…with which this begins is a mere four lines long. This is a form with a certain precedent: the A major Cello Sonata, Opus 69, also has an exceedingly short slow movement, which is also linked to its finale, and therefore serves, in a sense, as an introduction to it. There's a further connection between that work and Opus 101: both have opening movements which, while not slow, are serene and lyrical in the extreme. This is significant, because these opening movements provide a bit of the gravity that one might potentially miss, given the lack of a “full” slow movement. But in the case of Opus 101, however brief the slow movement is, gravity is hardly in short supply. Yes, it’s only four lines. But what lines! The content of this movement is really without precedent: one of the most remarkable evocations of aloneness in music. In the first movement, Beethoven took advantage of the richness of the German language in using the word “innigsten.” Here, he again uses a distinctly German word: “sehnsuchtvoll” – roughly, “filled with longing.” In his Italian translation, he uses “con affeto,” which isn’t bad, but doesn’t quite convey the same sentiment. This movement is short enough that I'll just simply play the whole thing for you. [music] The first thing to be said about this is that, just as with the first movement, Beethoven refuses to “lay down” the tonality – to establish it straight off the bat. It's pretty clearly evident that we are in A minor, but again, we begin on a dominant chord, inverted this time. [music] We do get the A minor chord in the first bar [music], and then again in the second [music]. But in both cases, it’s on the weak beat of the bar, and after that, it never returns: wandering is an essential part of the makeup of this music. What’s more significant, in terms of the way this brief and profoundly beautiful movement fits into the piece as a whole, is how deeply contrapuntal it is. There are independently moving voices throughout, and at one moment, it even becomes canonic, like the trio of the march. [music] Even though the character of this music – “con afetto,” “sehnsuchtvoll” – anticipates romantic period music, the counterpoint gives it a rather Bachian sonority. So again, this movement – like the others – has tempo indications in German and Italian, and there is a discrepancy between the two which is interesting and, perhaps, revealing. “Langsam und Sehnsuchtvoll” becomes “Adagio ma non troppo, con afetto.” So, leaving aside the latter part, “Langsam” converts to “Adagio ma non troppo.” This is puzzling, because unambiguously, “Langsam” means “slow.” So “slow” has become “Adagio ma non troppo.” Of course, it’s possible that this is just a mistake – a byproduct of Beethoven’s clunky Italian – but it might be suggestive of how deeply slow a real adagio is: if “Langsam” – slow – means “not too adagio,” perhaps "adagio" means “very, deeply, slow.” (It’s possible I’m overthinking this, because in the finale, Beethoven translates “Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit” – fast, but not too fast, and with determination – as merely “Allegro.” So this was clearly not an exact science for him! Still, given that his predecessors – and the Italian people in general – interpreted “adagio” as more flowing than really slow, this is a revealing marking. So, in a fitting callback to the first movement, this “langsam” section never comes to a cadence on its home key of A minor. It questions right until the very end, when it winds up on a strong dominant. [music] This music comes to a halt at this point, despite the evident need for a resolution. In the concerto, this would be the moment for a cadenza, and that is, essentially, what happens here – we have a meter-less, free-form passage on the dominant, which takes us somewhere extraordinary. [music] Somehow, we're back in the first movement! Now, the characters and the harmonic instability of these movements make this turn we’ve taken seem natural – even inevitable, in retrospect – but this is truly a revolutionary idea. Cyclical form became incredibly important to the romantic generation – Schumann, in particular, used it again and again – but Opus 101 is the first instrumental work of any consequence to feature the return of an earlier movement. And to the best of my knowledge, the first classical work of any kind to do so is just three opuses back: the An die ferne Geliebte. Just as the last song – the one that Schumann quotes in the Fantasy – seems to be coming to a conclusion, the first song of the cycle makes a reappearance, and then turns triumphant at the last moment. This is yet another link between Opus 101 and the Schumann Fantasy: because An die Ferne Geliebte and the piano sonata share this formal innovation, in quoting the former, Schumann subtly evokes the latter. The whole point of the cyclical writing is that when the material makes its reappearance, its emotional nature has been changed by what came in between. I talked about this in the lecture an Opus 109: how the reprise of the theme in the last movement has a new aspect, coming after the variations. But that’s very different, because what comes in between the two appearances of the theme is variations – it's all based on that very same theme. Any in any case, Opus 109 came later, so Opus 101 still gets more points for innovation. But even in a standard sonata movement, when the recapitulation comes, the opening theme tends to have newfound qualities, given what we’ve experienced in the interim – the move away from the tonic, and whatever dramas took place in the development. But in the sonata movement, we spend the whole development waiting for the recapitulation – the return is absolutely expected. The cyclical return, however, features a strong element of surprise: the feeling that opening material is now being presented OUT of context. We see that very strongly in the case of Opus 101. At the outset of the piece, this [music] feels less confident than one might have expected from a “sonata allegro.” But when it returns, coming out of the deep despair of the slow movement, it almost sounds optimistic – cautiously optimistic, to be sure – but still optimistic. It has also acquired a new feature: silence. Beethoven always loved using silence as a means of heightening the character and atmosphere of his music, and when he introduces it here, it seems so appropriate, one is almost surprised it wasn’t there at the beginning: it creates space between the questions, italicizing the uncertainty of the music. [music] Silence. [music] Another silence. And then a fragment of the second question. [music] And now, with urgency, spilling all over itself in search of some resolution. [music] And finally, finally [music] the answer! An affirmation. When we had this material the first time around – a whole movement of it – we never got such an affirmation. Fourteen minutes into the piece, and we still hadn’t had an affirmation of that kind, ever, in the home key of A major. This is just the very beginning – the first two notes! – of the last movement which, even counted separately from its introduction, is the longest movement of the piece. But we understand instantly that this movement exists to affirm, to answer and resolve everything that has been in doubt for the entire work thus far.
