Pinchas Zukerman + Shai Wosner

Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1 and 5

As an adolescent in his birthplace, Bonn, Beethoven performed as pianist in house concerts and as violist in Elector Maximilian Franz’s court orchestra. One mentor was Count Ferdinand Waldstein. When in 1790 Haydn stopped briefly in Bonn on his way to London, Waldstein introduced him to Beethoven. Shown a score, Haydn agreed to tutor Beethoven in Vienna upon return from England, so Beethoven made tentative plans to move. (Haydn remained in London for more than a year, so there was no hurry.) A letter from Waldstein to Beethoven states, “You will receive Mozart’s spirit from the hands of Haydn.” In gratitude, Beethoven dedicated his twenty-first piano sonata to his benefactor; the work is often referred to as the “Waldstein” sonata.

 In 1792 Beethoven received word of Haydn’s return. At Waldstein’s urging, Elector Franz gave him six months leave from the orchestra and a stipend. Beethoven kept forever a letter from his employer thanking him for service and support, remembering especially the pleasure of orchestra performances on a river tour where he served as violist and dishwasher. Beethoven made the journey to Vienna, never returned to Bonn. 

Salon audiences in the 1790s Vienna were numerous, important venues for composers and performers. Beethoven’s musical education with Haydn, Johann Georg Albrechtsberger, and Antonio Salieri was augmented by attending salon performances featuring contemporaneous Viennese composers. Franz’s small stipend was augmented by piano teaching. A letter from Elector Franz to Austrian Prince Karl Lichnovsky resulted in lodging with the prince, first a small attic room but soon an apartment with a piano. Beethoven sometimes ate with the royals, where their attempts to refine his manners and attire were less than entirely successful. He remained with the Lichnovskys for three years. His Op. 1 set of piano trios are dedicated to the prince, and a set of variations for piano and cello to Karl’s wife, Maria Christiane.

Lichnovsky hired a competent orchestra, consistently searching for more and better players. Beethoven learned from them as well, had a laboratory of sorts to enhance his knowledge of instruments’ capabilities. A trip to Potsdam to visit King Friedrich von Wilhelm II’s sumptuous palace and hear his excellent orchestra completed Beethoven’s informal education. He composed his first two cello sonatas for the Prussian king.

The title “solo violin sonata” used today for these pieces suggests solo violin with piano accompaniment, but in the eighteenth century the violin functioned as the second instrument. Beethoven’s heading for No. 9 states, “Sonata for Fortepiano with Violin Obbligato,” indicating the keyboard having the most prominent role. This musical hierarchy had been the norm for Mozart and others’ late Classic Era solo sonatas. As he did with other contemporary musical norms, Beethoven extended solo sonata elements in remarkably imaginative ways.

The three Op. 12 sonatas are dedicated to Salieri. Composed in 1797-8, they were roundly criticized as off putting, at best. One local critic stated that they sound “. . . strange, unnatural, although perhaps of interest to those in search of musical perversities.” The sonatas were published within a year, perversities included. (Not that they have been clearly identified.)

The first Op. 12 sonata comports formally with its late eighteenth-century genre. It’s the details of harmonic progression and assignment of the instruments’ musical roles where Beethoven exhibits individuality.

After the unison introduction, the violin establishes presence by presenting the movement’s main theme. After the piano takes its turn, a reverse of concerto unfolding, the violin assumes the well-established obbligato role. Alternation of prominence between instruments is similar to jazz players “trading fours.” Musical interest is heightened by alternation of triplet and quadruplet arpeggios in occasional out-of-key excursions with spritely character. Con brio indeed!  

Eighteenth-century slow movements in multi-movement works are less commonly consistent in form. First movement sonata-allegro and final movement rondo were well established, and Beethoven employed them without diversion for the outer movements of this sonata. Theme-and-variation was a common option for many, and a favorite Beethoven employed as independent works and in larger structured compositions. The theme is proposed by the piano; violin assumes a decorative role. Character is improvisatory, less distinctively memorable than thematic bases for such forms tend to be. Instruments roles are reversed in the second variation, as the violin sings freely in elaboration of the theme. 

Variation III exhibits the character of a scherzo, predictive of Beethoven’s marvelous scherzo movements in his mature works. Jocular, as instruments take turns laughing at each other. The fourth variation eschews direct reference to the theme in favor of disjointed fragmentation of a motive from it. The conclusion finally reminds of its essence, then dissipates.

The concluding movement is a playful rondo. Although the piano retains primacy, there are moments of duet texture and more development of sonority than in the previous movement.

 A charming, tidy sonata with hints of what will come.

Sonata No. 5, “Spring,” was composed in 1801, the title, not by Beethoven, was gradually associated over the succeeding years. It is the most frequently performed on his 10 solo violin sonatas. 

Beethoven was well established as pianist in Vienna at the turn of the century, as soloist for his first three concertos and in salons. His first ten piano sonatas and other works for the instrument were published soon after composition, and he self-produced a concert of entirely his own compositions. Living in a series of apartments, he was financially supported by patrons and lessons for piano students. He also was compensated for a reputedly large number of ballroom dance pieces.

The beginnings of health issues, primarily loss of hearing, began to be of concern. Social relations deteriorated when he could not always clearly understand conversation. Dismayed by what people perceived as lack of manners, in 1802 he lamented his increasing aural disability to his brothers in a famous letter known as the Heiligenstadt Testament. His hearing deteriorated throughout the remaining 25 years of his life, eventually requiring use of ear trumpets and conversation books. At this time, however, he composed the first of the masterworks in a new style that would markedly influence Brahms, Wagner, and Mahler. 

One of his then-current patrons was Count Morris von Fries. Beethoven dedicated his fifth violin sonata as well as several other compositions to Fries. The piece was composed nearly simultaneously with the fourth sonata, and Beethoven might have intended their publication to be as a set, as were the three Opus 12 sonatas. They were for some reason published separately.

These sonatas vary substantially in mood and character, as well as number and type of movements. The fourth is extraverted, the fifth more sedate. Beethoven did the same with his sixth symphony, the “Pastoral,” which is a more reserved work following the majestic, propulsive fifth. His last string quartet also is much more reserved in character than the massive and intense quartets immediately preceding it. Quality of all of these works is not diminished by their characters, extravagant and unprecedented looking forward or backward.

Sonata No. 5 is the first of the 10 to employ four movements rather than the usual three. Four became more of the norm, especially in the symphonies and string quartets. A change is also evident from the outset, with the main theme performed first by the violin. Repetition by the piano with violin support retains the textural paradigm of the eighteenth-century genre, the simple twist in instrumental roles one of Beethoven’s adjustments employed in the sonata. The second theme introduces a jolly dialogue, even matching articulations and strong, often abrupt, dynamic contrast. An arresting chord sends the development off into triplets teasing out the exposition’s motives, all gently wrapped in an evenly matched duet texture. The movement as a whole presents a nineteenth-century version of an eighteenth-century sonata-allegro.

Piano begins the languorous slow movement. The violin’s repetition is aria-like due to the instrument’s timbre. The remainder of the movement is an informal series of variations, freshened by modulations into a series of keys. Highly integrated, both musicians take maximum advantage of the motives presented by the theme.

The additional movement is the scherzo. In his later works Beethoven made the scherzo a favored replacement for the eighteenth-century minuet in the minuet-and-trio form favored by Haydn and Mozart. Scherzo means “joke,” so lively character is paramount. In this sonata, it seems a tentative foray into the new genre. Short, snappy articulations in the scherzo and rapid scales in the trio complement the preceding and succeeding movements.

The concluding rondo features a danceable melody interspersed with passages for piano reminiscent of Beethoven’s early sonatas. Each appearance of the melody is decorated more elaborately than the last, providing an energetic conclusion to the sonata.

Robert Zierolf