Ignat Solzhenitsyn - Solzhenitsyn Plays Beethoven

FROM PHILOSOPHY TO REVELATION By Ignat Solzhenitsyn The three sonatas on this disc, composed in the years 1814-1818, form a kind of bridge between the so-called middle and late periods of Beethoven's output. The Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90, exemplifies Beethoven's fascination with two-movement form: no fewer than ten sonatas (seven for piano, three for cello) are conceived in this abbreviated fashion. But in this sonata it may be said that Beethoven cleverly combines four movements into two: the first movement can be seen as a scherzo in sonata form, and the second as a slow movement in rondo form. The first movement of Op. 90 exhibits Beethoven's increasing formal concision-an artistic self-limitation that would find it's most sublime expression in the miraculously condensed first movement of Op. 109-and is further remarkable both for a new sparseness of texture and for the exotic choice of E minor, a key the composer used only three other times. But most striking of all is the ambiguity of character apparent from the outset: the defiant opening five-note gesture-and it's hushed, tender continuation in the next two bars. These two vectors continue to vie for supremacy throughout the entire movement, until, at the coda, the defiance exhausts itself in a disquietingly abrupt and uncertain ending. Out of that lonely contemplativeness there blooms a wistful Rondo theme, haunting yet tender, that must surely rank among the finest melodies that Beethoven has left us. Framed by a murmuring sixteenth-note texture and harmonic progressions of Schubertian directness, the full measure of it's beauty is not revealed until it's final statement in the tenor voice. Like many a compositional masterstroke, this one feels both unforeseen and inevitable. Soon after, the murmur of sixteenth-notes comes to a sudden halt, bringing the movement to a conclusion even more unexpected than the first. The Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101, opens in the "wrong" key, a startling technique that Beethoven employs as early as at the first chord of his first symphony. But, whereas in earlier works, such as in Op. 31/2 and Op. 31/3, Beethoven is concerned with suspense and it's quick resolution, something altogether more profound is at work here: a stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge the tonic (but through passing reference) until the close of the recapitulation. Combined with the use of melodic suspension and rhythmic syncopation, the result is so destabilizing as to beget a dizzying weightlessness that gives this extraordinary movement it's memorably elusive ambiance. Just as the supreme lyricism of the second movement of Op. 90 made us instinctively fast-forward to Schubert, so the angular awkwardness of the F-major march that serves as the scherzo of Op. 101 instantly brings to mind some of the most grotesque visions of Schumann: here are the same obsessive dotted rhythms, the anxious repeated notes, the muscular jumps. Only in the gentle, subdominant-hued trio, does the wonderful weirdness abate, yet even then the deceptive artlessness of the melody is contravened by the stark dissonance created by it's subjection to canonic treatment. And now we come to the third movement. What began as bold experimentation in the Sonata Op. 53 and the Symphony Op. 55-shifting the center of gravity to the last movement-has by now developed into the governing architectural principle of the late period. Henceforth, every sonata-not to mention the Ninth Symphony and the Op. 130 quartet (as originally conceived with the Große Fuge)-will propound it's strongest argument in the finale. One measure of the complexity of Op. 101's finale is that no clear consensus exists on whether it even constitutes a single movement. The more traditional interpretation proposes the Langsam as movement 3 and the Geschwinde as movement 4, but such a view fails to account for the pivotal role played by the Zeitmaß des ersten Stücks not only in illuminating the thematic genesis of the Geschwinde, but in effecting the crucial psychological shift from the sacramental mystery of the Langsam to the unbridled jubilation of the Geschwinde. A regular sonata form follows, except that the entire development section is swallowed up by an explosive four-voice fugue, in a thrilling foretaste of the dazzling pyrotechnics of Op. 106. The Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major, Op. 106, occupies a unique position amongst Beethoven's sonatas, of which it is by far the longest and most difficult. The immense challenges begin at once with the audacious left-hand leaps of the first theme, and continue with stretches, jumps, octaves, split-hand trills, and close-knit writing where the hands can barely keep out of each other's way, all unfolding at a dizzying tempo (assuming one attempts even an approximation of the composer's forbidding metronome mark of half note = 138). In addition, more than in any other sonata, there exist contradictory readings of rhythms and pitches that ultimately must be resolved according to the performer's intuition. I have addressed the reasoning behind my choices elsewhere (goo. Gl/5nv9l), but the spectacularly contentious question of "A or A-sharp?" (in the closing three bars of the development) must be singled out here. There are strong arguments on both sides, but the two clinchers in favour of the A-sharp, for me, are these: that all sources give A-sharp (and so, ultimately, the A must remain 100% speculative); and that, in the immortal formulation of Artur Schnabel, "all available arguments in favour of A are too weak, in view of the superior manifestation of genius inherent in the A-sharp". The second movement-a bleak, spectral Scherzo-is scarcely less difficult than the opening movement. Here again are dizzying leaps, Procrustean stretches, and lightning-quick repeated notes that require machine-like precision. The minor-key Trio section, in it's subtle use of canon at the octave, hearkens back to the analogous section of Op. 101. One hesitates to say which manifests the greater inspiration-the choice of remote F-sharp minor as the desolate tonic of this, the greatest of all Beethoven slow movements, or his later addition of the first bar, with the mind-bending implications of it's unharmonized A and C-sharp. This Adagio, cast in gigantic sonata form, seems to sum up the composer's entire life experience and requires, in the words of Czerny, that the interpreter, in turn, "call forth the whole art of performance". J. W. N. Sullivan is perhaps only partially right when he suggests that the movement "is the deliberate expression... of the cold and immeasurable woe in whose depths... nothing that we could call life could endure": it's elaborate psychological tapestry, after all, indubitably includes contemplation, yearning, consolation, and resignation. At any rate, the depth of suffering conjured up here by Beethoven remains quite unparalleled and profoundly awesome. But how to rise from such a reverie, how to re-enter the land of the living? The Largo that follows is, according to Sullivan, "a miracle of art... The gradual awakening effected by the Largo from our state of dumb suspension fulfills a craving of the spirit that surely only this one artist could ever have formulated". Indeed, this free-flowing, seemingly improvised introduction is as firm a masterstroke of structural ingenuity as any towering edifice raised up by this peerless Architect. What follows, in the legendary triple fugue, is the summa of keyboard counterpoint and an exhaustive test of pianistic skill. Augmentation, inversion, stretto, retrograde-Beethoven marshals every conceivable resource in a stupefying display of fugal virtuosity, a transformative and entirely overwhelming denouement of this immortal testament to human transcendence. © 2013 Ignat Solzhenitsyn.