The ‘Appassionata’

The ‘Appassionata’

Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57, ‘Appassionata’

Composed 1804-5, published 1807 Dedicated to Count Franz von Brunsvik I. Allegro assai II. Andante con moto III. Allegro ma non troppo – Presto

Here is a Sonata which, unlike the Sonata Op. 54, has never been out of the limelight. The title Appassionata was once again added by a publisher but has remained a part of the identity of the work ever since. As with the Waldstein, Beethoven’s linkage together of the slow movement and the finale makes clear that he is increasingly thinking of the movements not episodically but as part of a connected structural whole. The Romanian-born composer and theorist Philip Herschkowitz has even suggested the possibility of seeing it as a sonata that is essentially in one single movement. That might require a bit of creativity to sustain fully, but it is a thought-provoking idea, underlining how unified and connected Beethoven’s approach is to the movements, and how this work – and other Beethoven sonatas of the first decade of the 19th century – were reimagining the nature of the piano sonata.

The opening bare octaves are simple and strange; this is music which seems to be on the verge of something, unsettled, and fertile with possibilities. That unsettled quality reappears later in the movement when A-flat major slips to an unexpected A-flat minor towards the end of the exposition. Interestingly Beethoven follows this not with a repeat of the exposition (this is the first of his opening sonata-allegros not to have an exposition repeat) but by a transformation of A-flat minor into E major, a key remote from the tonic. Even the moment of recapitulation is not completely secure, Beethoven making the return to the tonic sound provisional. As in the Waldstein, the coda is extended and replays the important themes of the movement. And for all its clever devices using motives and harmony in extraordinary ways to build up a large structure, the most remarkable thing about the movement is the sense of an almost inexorable progress from that very first suggestive moment all the way to the end of the extended coda.

The second movement is by contrast relatively static and sectional. A simple theme is followed by three variations, after which a return to the theme then links into the finale. The relative simplicity of this movement is something of a surprise, but it plays a key structural role in the context of what is a connected and essentially variational threemovement structure.

The finale returns to more complex musical utterance, which again seems predicated on the repetition and development of a few small ideas. Like the second movement of Op. 54, this is delivered in an almost constant stream of semiquaver motion. The pianist and musicologist Charles Rosen has described the movement as being in sonata form, but in the style of a rondo. If we add to that description Herschkowitz’s idea of it being the last part of a single movement variation structure, we can sense both the unity and multi-dimensionality of the work. And all of this is achieved in a context which is gestural and dramatic, pushing on towards the energetic conclusion.