Beth Levin Plays Beethoven’s Last Three Piano Sonatas

Beethoven said that his final three piano sonatas, written between 1820 and 1822, were conceived “in a single breath.” 

In April, 2012, pianist Beth Levin gave what has been described as a “revelatory” performance of these three Sonatas (Op. 109, 110, and 111) in the intimate setting of New York’s Faust Harrison Pianos. Luckily, this special concert, performed on an 1887 Steinway, was recorded and released a year later on the Navona label (“A Single Breath: Beethoven’s Last Three Piano Sonatas”). 

All of the mystery and profound sense of revelation of late Beethoven is apparent in Levin’s performance of the middle Sonata, No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110. From the first bars of the first movement, Moderato cantabile molto espressivo, we get an amazing sense of the piano “singing.” Listen to the way this opening melody reaches into the highest register of the keyboard, as if striving for some far-off, unattainable goal.

This contemplative and lamenting first movement is followed by a ferocious scherzo (Allegro molto) in F minor, filled with rhythmic ambiguity which keeps us off balance. This brief movement dissolves into a bridge to the final movement. Suddenly, we find ourselves in the tragic, meditative world of the Arioso. A strange, operatic recitative emerges. (In an earlier post, we explored the way instrumental recitatives occasionally and inexplicably show up throughout Beethoven’s music). Just as suddenly, a fugue subject begins, rising in stepping fourths, and developing an idea briefly foreshadowed in the first movement.

The writer Charles Rosen believes that in this movement the devices of counterpoint and fugue “become elements of a dramatic scenario” for the first time. Rosen writes that with all of this spectacular, blossoming fugal counterpoint, which brings the Sonata to a joyfully exuberant close ,

Beethoven does not simply symbolize or represent the return to life for us, but persuades us physically of the process.

Recordings

About Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa.

The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States.

A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals.

In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

3 thoughts on “Beth Levin Plays Beethoven’s Last Three Piano Sonatas”

  1. I know this sonata well and have never heard it more beautifully performed. It was the favorite sonata of my late husband, American composer Ernst Bacon, who played many of the Beethoven sonatas but, although a pianist, never composed a sonata of his own. My guess is that he felt Beethoven had said it all in this genre. In my opinion, there is nothing in music so profound and transcendent as Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. And your performance of Op. 110 is deeply moving in every detail.

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  2. There’s an imagination at work here but the technical limitations are too considerable . Not remotely competitive to my ears I’m afraid. Ditto the recordings I’ve sampled of Goldberg Variations and Hammerklavier.

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