Sonata No. 23, Op. 57, “Appassionata”

According to Carl Czerny, one of Beethoven’s pupils, Beethoven considered the “Appassionata” his greatest sonata until he composed the “Hammerklavier” Sonata. It is easy to see why Beethoven thought so highly of the “Appassionata”: The work reveals, even more fully than previous sonatas, Beethoven’s genius for composing dramatic music. In the perfection of its form and the darkness of its vision, it has even been likened to a Greek tragedy.

The first movement is directly related to a dramatic source: Beethoven’s opera Fidelio. The opening of the sonata ( 1) resembles Florestan’s dungeon scene and is written in the same key. The beginning conjures an atmosphere of ominous foreboding that is soon shattered by loud explosions of ascending minor chords. Later in the sonata’s first movement, Beethoven uses an inversion of the ominous opening figure to create a heroic theme in a major key.

The second movement ( 2) is not only a charming set of variations, but also leads directly into the final movement ( 3). As in the “Waldstein” Sonata, Beethoven shows a growing tendency to write tightly related movements unified by an underlying coherence of design.

Ferdinand Ries, another of Beethoven’s pupils, reported that Beethoven conceived of the sonata’s last movement during a walk: “He had been all the time humming and sometimes howling always up and down, without singing any definite notes.” When asked what he was humming, Beethoven replied, “a theme for the last movement has occurred to me.” When the two returned from the walk, said Ries, Beethoven “ran to the pianoforte without taking off his hat … Now he stormed for at least an hour with the beautiful finale of the sonata. Finally he got up, was still surprised to see me and said, ‘I cannot give you a lesson today; I must do some work.’” Ries lost a piano lesson and the world gained a masterpiece.