Beethoven: Sonata No. 2 for Piano, in A, Op. 2
Ames Town & Gown performers: Vadym Kholodenko
Martha-Ellen Tye Recital Hall, April 27, 2018
Notes by Karl E. Gwiasda
Ludwig van Beethoven’s hope to study with Mozart dissipated upon Mozart’s death in December 1791. Beethoven, however, was still resolved to make his mark in Vienna. When he at last undertook the journey to the Austro-Hungarian capital in November 1792, he left his native Bonn fortified by the heartfelt wish of his patron, Count Ferdinand von Waldstein, that “With the help of unceasing diligence you will receive the spirit of Mozart from the hands of Haydn.”
Duly diligent, Beethoven began studying with Haydn soon after arriving in Vienna. He continued that study until January 1794, when Haydn left the continent for his second extended tour to London. Exactly what Beethoven did receive from his lessons with Haydn is a matter that has long vexed scholars. From existing evidence, he appears to have been deeply dissatisfied with Haydn’s instruction. For one thing, while he was working under Haydn’s guidance, he also secretly took lessons in counterpoint from Johann Schenk. According to his associate Ferdinand Ries, moreover, Beethoven declined Haydn’s request to identify himself as “the pupil of Haydn” on his published compositions because, he explained, “he never had learned anything” from Haydn (Beethoven: Impressions by His Contemporaries, ed. O. G. Sonneck [1926], p. 49).
Biographers and historians have sought to account for Beethoven’s harsh assessment of a man who took care to introduce Beethoven to several of Vienna’s wealthy benefactors and who helped the young composer in other ways. Ries reported that Beethoven suspected Haydn of envy and hostility because Haydn had disapproved of the C minor trio in the set of string trios that became Beethoven’s Opus 1. To Beethoven, the C minor was the best of the three trios. Even if Haydn’s adverse judgment rankled, however, it has seemed an insufficient basis for dismissing altogether Haydn’s worth as a teacher. From a study of extant materials, German musicologist Gustav Nottebohn concluded that Haydn was in fact a lax teacher. Most commentators, however, have been unwilling to charge Haydn with incompetence. More commonly, they attribute Beethoven’s discontent to a clash of personalities. To Beethoven, Haydn’s easy-going manner may have seemed an absence of earnestness and rigor.
Though Beethoven little prized Haydn as a teacher, he revered Haydn as a composer. At a concert celebrating Haydn’s 76th birthday in 1808, Beethoven reportedly knelt before the older man and kissed his hand. In 1812, Beethoven wrote an admirer that he was not yet entitled to be ranked alongside Handel, Haydn, and Mozart (cited in Maynard Solomon, Beethoven, 2nd ed. [1998], p. 102). Significantly, too, when Beethoven published his first three piano sonatas in 1796 as his Opus 2, he dedicated the set to Haydn. Beethoven added no explanation for the honor, but it was likely meant as an acknowledgment of the influence of Haydn’s compositions.
Written between 1793 and 1795, the sonatas most clearly exhibit a debt to Haydn in their adherence to the four-movement structure of Haydn’s later symphonies. In their piano sonatas, both Haydn and Mozart favored a three-movement pattern, which Beethoven also adopted for almost all the sonatas he produced after 1804. Denis Matthews has proposed that Beethoven opted for four movements in his earliest sonatas “as though in preparation for the accepted scale of the symphony” (Beethoven Piano Sonatas [1967], pp. 14-15). Likewise noting that the sonatas appeared before Beethoven had issued any quartets or symphonies, Ann-Louise Coldicott suggests that Beethoven used the piano sonata “not only as his main vehicle of expression, but also as a sort of prototype for those forms” (The Beethoven Compendium, ed. Barry Cooper [1991], p. 240).
Marked Allegro vivace (“Fast and lively”), the cheerful first movement of the Second sonata opens with an impishly abrupt utterance that is thereupon put through an extended presentation to reveal it as a bona fide theme. This statement is followed by the introduction of a secondary theme of more customarily lyrical character. After a repetition of the opening exposition, the two themes are put through a playful development that makes much use of quick changes in dynamics (softness and loudness). In contrast to its beginning, the movement closes quietly.
The second movement reveals that even so early in his career, Beethoven was capable of attaining grandeur in his slow movements. The movement is atypical of the composer in one way, however. In only one other of his 32 piano sonatas, the Fourth, did Beethoven also include a movement so slow as Largo. The movement’s opening—the melody unfolds against a steady march of staccato bass notes—is particularly striking.
In what became a characteristic feature of his mature style, Beethoven substitutes a Scherzo for the usual Minuet in a four-movement work. Over the 19th century, the term “scherzo” came to denote a movement that is quick and energetic, but Beethoven’s Scherzo for the Second sonata retains the term’s root meaning of “jesting” or “jocular.” The short movement is in ABA form, its lyrical Trio (middle section) bearing suggestions of the rippling motif of the quirky opening and closing sections.
The sonata closes in a Rondo, a piece having a regularly recurring theme. Usually, such movements are meant to be taken fast, but Beethoven specifies that the rondo for the Second sonata be played grazioso (“gracefully”). The opening theme appears four times, with each interlude becoming more elaborate than its predecessor. In what may seem a surprise for a Beethoven composition, the movement closes in a restrained, undramatic manner.