CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Mitsuko Uchida

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009 at 8:00 PM

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano

BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Op. 109
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 31 in A-flat Major, Op. 110
BEETHOVEN Sonata No. 32 in C Minor, Op. 111

Program is approximately 1 hour, 10 minutes, and will be performed without intermission

Program Notes:

Beethoven and the Piano Sonata

Beethoven was the greatest composer and, by many reports, the greatest pianist of his day. His 32 sonatas for solo piano, nine symphonies, and 16 string quartets stand together as the core of his work and his greatest achievement.

Beethoven wrote piano sonatas over nearly the entire course of his career. As with other compositional forms, he began by taking the measure of Mozart and Haydn—that is, by demonstrating a mastery of the style and architecture of the Classical-period sonata established by his two great predecessors. But he soon moved beyond the older models, repeatedly reinventing the sonata in light of his changing musical concerns.

After 1800, his works in this genre became more virtuosic, employing a far greater range of keyboard figuration and sonorities than anything conceived in the 18th century. This expansion of pianistic resources reflects his innovative spirit and the rapid evolution of his compositional thinking. Together, Beethoven’s sonatas trace the metamorphosis of his music as a whole and chart one of the most remarkable creative endeavors ever undertaken by a musician.


Beethoven’s Last Sonatas

In the spring of 1820, Beethoven suddenly decided to produce a set of three new piano sonatas. The composer was, at this time, immersed in work on his Missa Solemnis, which he interrupted to write the three sonatas. His motivation for doing so, however, remains uncertain. Anton Schindler, Beethoven’s occasional secretary and none too reliable biographer, asserted that his employer returned to keyboard music in order to dispel rumors that he was creatively depleted, no longer capable of his former level of production. Whatever the merits of Schindler’s claim, it seems that financial concern may also have played a part in prompting these pieces, for the composer’s correspondence with the Berlin publisher Adolf Schlesinger reveals his usual haggling over an acceptable fee.

Although Beethoven later declared that he had written these three sonatas “in a single breath,” he actually completed the first of them substantially before the other two. Sketches for the Sonata in E Major, Op. 109, appear in his notebooks from April 1820; in September, the composer informed Schlesinger that it was “about ready for proof.” By contrast, its companion pieces, Opp. 110 and 111, were not finished until more than a year later: Op. 110 on Christmas Day of 1821, and Op. 111 on January 13 of the following year.


LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770–1827)
Sonata E Major, Op. 109

This is one of the shortest and most intimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. It also represents one of the composer’s most radical departures from the form and character of the Classical-period keyboard sonata, as exemplified by the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven’s own early efforts. But if Op. 109 bears little resemblance to classical piano sonata outlines, neither does it present the dramatic character and conspicuous virtuosity of the Romantic sonata. Rather, it lies beyond such categories as Classical and Romantic in the unique realm of Beethoven’s late-period works.

Formal Design
Op. 109 unfolds in three movements that seem more like two. Beethoven cast the finale as a theme with variations, a format he cultivated throughout his career—especially during his later years. The preceding movements use the principle of sonata form—statement, development, and reprise of two or three well-defined themes—but in only the most general way. The first movement, in particular, seems quite free in its discourse. Moreover, this movement proceeds without a break into the galloping music of the second movement, an event that serves to blur the composition’s large formal outlines.

Composed in 1820.


Sonata in A-flat Major, Op. 110

The centerpiece of Beethoven’s late-sonata triptych, the Sonata in A-flat Major, Op. 110, is in several respects the most clear and accessible of these three compositions. Its first movement, especially, is marked by an easy lyricism and lucid development. Nevertheless, it reveals certain innovations that distinguish Beethoven’s late style: the wide-ranging and often abrupt harmonic movement; the replacing of the heroic character of his most ambitious earlier compositions with one of Olympian calm; and, in its finale, experimentation with hybrid form and extensive use of fugal counterpoint.

Mixing Forms and Styles
The finale of Op. 110 represents one of Beethoven’s most original constructions. Its opening measures present what seems to be an operatic scena—a recitative followed by a lamenting arioso—transcribed to the piano. But when the latter section comes to a pause, Beethoven changes course entirely and launches into a fugue on a swaying subject. This contrapuntal music develops in spellbinding fashion before breaking off suddenly, returning to the music of the arioso, which now continues anew. Finally, a series of detached chords and an ascending figure leads back to the fugue. In the end, Beethoven abandons strict fugal counterpoint for a more free and jubilant treatment of the theme.

Composed between 1821 and 1822.


Sonata in C Minor, Op. 111

Even more than the previous two sonatas, Beethoven’s last major piano composition, Op. 111, departs radically in form and character from Classical-period norms. For one thing, this sonata has only a pair of movements, a fact that puzzled a number of Beethoven’s contemporaries. (Among those baffled was one of the composer’s publishers, who wrote to Beethoven asking whether his copyist had forgotten to send the expected bright finale.) Moreover, neither movement is conventional in any way. The first begins with an introduction whose dramatic gestures and searching harmonies convey a sense of deep brooding. In the main body of the movement, Beethoven again resorts brilliantly to fugal counterpoint, a procedure that increasingly attracted him during his final years.

Vast, Strange, Extravagantly Magnificent
Beethoven casts the second movement of Op. 111 as a theme with variations, a format he favored throughout his career but most significantly during his later years. The subject melody is a modest “Arietta,” as Beethoven calls it, simple and serene in its straightforward lines and harmonies. Its unassuming demeanor makes Beethoven’s paraphrases of the theme all the more extraordinary. Retaining only its harmonic outline, the composer eventually loses sight of the melody as increasingly far-reaching figurative invention transforms it beyond all expectation. Thomas Mann declared this portion of the sonata to be “all that one may well call vast, strange, extravagantly magnificent, without thereby giving it a name because it is truly nameless.” For those disinclined to such rhetoric, it can only be said that in its extraordinary originality and intimations of a spiritual journey, Beethoven’s last utterance as a composer of keyboard sonatas fittingly crowns this portion of his oeuvre.

Composed between 1821 and 1822.

DIGGING DEEPER

The literature on Beethoven and his music is vast. Alexander Wheelock Thayer’s biography, Life of Beethoven, first published between 1866 and 1869, remains the standard. Its modern incarnation is an edition with valuable context and commentary by musicologist Elliot Forbes (Princeton University Press, 1992).

A concise study of Beethoven’s life and music is provided by the Cambridge Companion to Beethoven (Cambridge University Press, 2000). A valuable commentary on Beethoven’s piano sonatas is Charles Rosen’s Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion (Yale University Press, 2002). The volume includes a compact disc that furnishes musical examples recorded by the pianist-author.

Beethoven’s sonatas have been published by a number of firms, of which G. Henle is widely respected for its editorial probity. Also interesting (and economical) is Dover’s reprint of a 1923 Universal Editions publication that includes notes and commentary by the great music theorist, Heinrich Schenker.Composed in 1820

Mitsuko Uchida, Piano
Mitsuko Uchida brings a deep insight into the music she plays through her own search for truth and beauty. She is renowned for her interpretations of Mozart and Schubert, both in the concert hall and on CD, but she has also illuminated the music of Berg, Schoenberg, Webern, and Boulez for a new generation of listeners. Her recording of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto with Pierre Boulez and The Cleveland Orchestra won four awards, including the Gramophone Award for Best Concerto. Ms. Uchida recently won BBC Music Magazine’s award for Instrumentalist of the Year and Disc of the Year for her recording of Beethoven’s Op. 101 and Op. 106.

Ms. Uchida performs throughout the world with many different partners. Some highlights of her 2008–2009 season included performances throughout Europe with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, playing Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto; Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Mozartwoche and Salzburg Festival; the Hagen Quartet; and with Magdalena Kožená for an evening of song.

In the 2009–2010 season, Ms. Uchida continues her focus on Beethoven, performing all five concertos with Simon Rattle during a month’s residency with the Berliner Philharmoniker. She also participates in European concert tours with The Cleveland Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and gives solo recitals in Paris, New York, and Tokyo, as well as a return performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Mitsuko Uchida records exclusively for Decca. Her recordings include the complete Mozart piano sonatas and piano concertos; the complete Schubert piano sonatas; Debussy etudes; the five Beethoven piano concertos with Kurt Sanderling; a CD of Mozart sonatas for violin and piano with Mark Steinberg; Die schöne Müllerin with Ian Bostridge for EMI; the final five Beethoven piano sonatas; and the 2008 recording of Berg’s Chamber concerto with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Pierre Boulez, and Christian Tetzlaff. Fall 2009 sees the release of Mozart’s concertos No. 23 in A Major (K. 488) and No. 24 in C minor (K. 491) with Ms. Uchida directing The Cleveland Orchestra from the piano.

Mitsuko Uchida has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to aiding the development of young musicians and is a trustee of the Borletti-Buitoni Trust. She is also Co-Director, with
Richard Goode, of the Marlboro Music Festival. In June 2009, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.