Two Easy Sonatas, Op. 49

Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op. 49, No. 1

Composed 1795-7, published 1805 I. Andante II. Rondo: Allegro

Sonata No. 20 in G minor, Op. 49, No. 2

Composed 1795-7, published 1805 I. Allegro ma non troppo II. Tempo di menuetto

These two works are something of an anomaly among the 32 published sonatas. That is partly a matter of chronology: they were written at the same time as the early sonatas but not published until a decade later. (That they were published at all seems to have been something of an accident; they were sent to a publisher without Beethoven’s knowledge or approval, by his brother). More substantively, they stand a little apart from the rest of the cycle because they were written specifically for amateurs, and are correspondingly of modest dimensions and compositional ambition. Both sonatas have just two movements, forming different but interesting pairings – the first a sonata form Andante with a rondo Allegro; the second, a sonata form Allegro followed by a minuet. This two-movement format is unusual in the sonatas composed in the 1890s, but Beethoven was to return to it several times in the later sonatas.

Op. 49, No. 1 is the more sophisticated of the two sonatas. The Andante first movement has a remarkable sense of structural flow and combines the functions of first movement and slow movement. The rondo finale revels in the episodic contrasts of the form; it is far from predictable and creates interesting and clever formal shapes. Op. 49, No. 2 begins with a more conventional sonata-allegro, efficient and well crafted. The second movement minuet alternates its main theme with two episodes, rather like a rondo. This main theme is shared with the minuet from Beethoven’s Septet, Op. 20, one of his most popular successes.