Sonata No. 31, Op. 110

Pierre-Laurent Aimard

on Op. 110

Audio Excerpt 1

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110 (III. Adagio ma non troppo; Arioso dolente; Fuga; Allegro, ma non troppo; L'istesso tempo di Arioso; L'inversione della Fuga)

Audio Excerpt 2

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110 (III. Adagio ma non troppo; Arioso dolente; Fuga; Allegro, ma non troppo; L'istesso tempo di Arioso; L'inversione della Fuga)

Audio Excerpt 2

Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110 (II. Allegro molto)

Audio excerpted from Mitsuko Uchida / Beethoven Piano Sonatas / Philips

Beethoven had recently recovered from a long illness when he wrote Op. 110. “My health appears to give me new life, so that I can, anew, live for my art …” Beethoven wrote in September 1821. Some critics hear the sonata’s final movement as a depiction of the composer’s suffering and recuperation from his recent sickness.

The movement alternates between a dark descending melody ( 1) and a hopeful ascending fugal subject ( 2). The melody is a fairly direct quotation from an alto aria in Bach’s St. John Passion that describes the moment of Christ’s death. Without assuming that Beethoven considered himself a second Christ, it is possible to hear autobiographical hints through the darkness of the music.

The sonata also contains decidedly less somber allusions. The second movement ( 3) quotes two popular songs of the period, the lyrics to one of which can be translated as, “I am dissolute, you are dissolute.” An anecdote from the same period recounts Beethoven being mistaken for a dissolute character when he got lost and was arrested on the assumption, from his shabby clothing, that he was a bum.

Whatever autobiographical jokes and echoes that the sonata contains, its compositional style is a revolutionary blend of Baroque counterpoint, Classical harmonies, and an expressive force that seems to anticipate Romanticism.