Beethoven: Sonata No. 26 for Piano, in E-flat, Op. 81a, Les Adieux
Ames Town & Gown performers: Ann Schein
Martha-Elle Tye Recital Hall, September 30, 2012
Ann Schein was honored with a Lifetime Achievement in the Performing Arts by the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her amazing career debuted in Mexico City in 1957 with performance of both the Rachmaninoff 3rd Concerto and the Tchikovsky B-flat Concerto. Her teachers included Mieczyslaw Munz, Arthur Rubinstin and Dame Myra Hess.
Notes by Karl E. Gwiasda
In May 1809, in the aftermath of an Austrian pre-emptive strike against Napoleon’s forces, French troops laid siege to Vienna to compel the city’s surrender. Among the frightened citizens who suffered through a nightlong bombardment begun on May 11 was Beethoven, who sought safety in a cellar and placed a pillow over his ears to dull the din of the incessant shelling. The French cannonade achieved its aim. The city capitulated and came under French occupation. Writing to his publisher in July, Beethoven remarked on the harsh conditions that prevailed: “What a destructive, disorderly life I see and hear around me; nothing but drums, cannons, and human misery in every form.”
Such turbulent circumstances would not seem at all conducive to artistic inspiration, but they became the setting for Beethoven’s composition of the piano sonata that is popularly known as Les Adieux. This title was not exactly what Beethoven had wanted. On his manuscript, he had inscribed the German word Lebewohl (“Farewell”). He intended that the music be printed with both German and French titles, but the publisher instead issued separate editions for the German and French markets. Because the French term Les Adieux serves as both a singular and plural, Beethoven apparently feared, perhaps mistakenly, that his desired meaning would be misunderstood in the French version. He complained to the publisher that the French phrase would signify good-byes said “to an assembly or town,” while the German singular Lebewohl would be said “in a warm and hearty manner to a single person” (Letter of 9 October 1810). As an added oddity, the sonata was identified as Op. 81a because of the contemporaneous publication of a sextet that was also assigned 81 as its opus number.
The single person to whom the farewell applied was Beethoven’s pupil, friend, and patron, the Archduke Rudolph. Along with other members of the imperial family (Rudolph was a brother of the emperor, Francis I), Rudolph had fled Vienna when the French army advanced upon the city. Beethoven began writing his sonata on the very day of the Archduke’s departure, May 4, dedicating it to Rudolph and declaring it to be “written from the heart.” He finished the second movement in November and completed the work in January 1810 when the royals were once again in Vienna following the end of the occupation. To the second movement he affixed the label Abwesenheit (“Absence”), while he named the last movement Wiedersehen (“Return”).
To underline the programmatic intent of his sonata, Beethoven placed the syllables Le-be-wohl over the descending three notes that open the sonata’s slow (Adagio) introductory section. These are answered by another three notes that become the seed for the main theme of the fast-moving (Allegro) central section that commences after a series of seemingly hesitant phrases. The music seems filled with high spirits until a restatement of the Le-be-wohl motif occasions a more solemn mood. Soon, the livelier humor resumes but is again interrupted by the Le-be-wohl motif. Once more, the music attempts to maintain a more cheerful character, but the three-note “farewell” becomes more insistent, as though warning that the departure can no longer be delayed. The movement closes with peremptory chords.
Marked Andante expressive (“Moderately paced and full of feeling”), the short second movement begins in a variant of the Le-be-wohl figure. The melancholy gradually gives way to happier memories. The music oscillates in moods until, without any pause, it breaks into the joyously exuberant finale, which carries the unusual marking Vivacissimamente(presumably, “as lively as possible”). The music conveys a playfulness that is not usually associated with the composer. Near the movement’s close, the excitement ebbs for a while, but the music ends in a burst of utter delight.
Performances of Sonata No. 26 for Piano, in E-flat, Op. 81a, Les Adieux (all freely available on YouTube)