Composed during the summer of 1816, the Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101 is the first of Beethoven’s five “late period” piano sonatas. It is music filled with mystery and divine revelation.
Isolated from the world as a result of nearly total hearing loss, Beethoven, in his final years, conceived of music unlike anything which came before. Gone is the classical charm, and ferocious revolutionary struggle of the earlier periods. Late Beethoven drifts into a strange time-altering world which seems to transcend style and convention.
Beethoven described the Sonata, Op. 101 as “a series of impressions and reveries.” The opening of the first movement (Allegretto ma non troppo) seems to emerge, mid-phrase, giving us the sense that we have just slipped into a quiet dream state. It floats gently over a pastoral landscape. With no definitive cadences in A major, the home key remains a beautiful blur. This is music which opens the door to the later Romanticism of Schumann and Chopin. Beethoven provides the interpretive marking, “somewhat lively, and with the most heartfelt expression.”
Moving to F major, the second movement (Vivace alla marcia) is a lively and spirited march with relentless dotted rhythms. As it unfolds, the music becomes increasingly strange, disconnected, and unsettling. Its conversing voices are erratic and take on alien inflections. For a fleeting moment, we enter a serene dreamscape, both sunny and wistful. The flowing, canonic trio section in B-flat major brings echoes of the pristine imitative counterpoint of J.S. Bach.
The third movement (Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto) is solemn, tender, and introspective. Beethoven provides the direction, “slow and longingly.” Soon, we realize that this brief movement is really an introduction to the finale. In the final bars, the dreamy opening strands of the first movement return suddenly. The theme drifts away, and the music awakens with leaping, exuberant scales and trills which lead directly into the final movement (Allegro).
The high-flying final movement, marked, “swiftly, but not overly, and with determination,” is an ode to the counterpoint of Bach. A sudden outburst comes with the theme’s first two notes falling in octaves. They land as a humorous reference to the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Out of this stern interruption develops a dazzling four-voice fugue. The final bars send us off with a jarring musical joke, and boisterous laughter.
Beethoven dedicated the Sonata to his student and friend, Baroness Dorothea Ertmann, who, according to the biographer Anton Schindler, was regarded as “the greatest performer of Beethoven’s compositions…She intuitively grasped the most hidden subtleties of Beethoven’s works with as much certainty as if they had been written out before her eyes.”
I. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung (Somewhat lively, and with innermost sensibility). Allegretto, ma non troppo:
II. Lebhaft, marschmäßig (Lively, march-like). Vivace alla marcia:
III. Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll (Slow and longingly). Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto:
IV. Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit (Swiftly, but not overly, and with determination). Allegro:
Five Great Recordings
- Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101, Igor Levit Amazon
- Annie Fischer (1977-78 studio recording)
- Vladimir Ashkenazy (1983 concert recording)
- Ronald Brautigam (period fortepiano performance)
- Fazil Say (2019 recording)
Featured Image: “Bohemian Landscape with Two Trees” (1810), Caspar David Friedrich