Соната для фортепиано №23 f-moll, Op.57 (Appassionata)

Соната для фортепиано № 23 фа минор, соч. 57, также известная как Аппассионата (итал. Appassionato - воодушевленно, страстно, живо) — одна из самых известных бетховенских сонат. Композитор работал над ней в течение 1804 - 1805 и, возможно, 1806 годов. Это тяжелый период в жизни Бетховена, когда он начал осознавать необратимость прогрессирующей глухоты (в 1802 году написано его "Гейлигенштадтское завещание"). Соната имеет посвящение графу Францу фон Брунсвик. Впервые опубликована в Вене в феврале 1807 года.

В отличие от Сонаты №8, "Патетической", Appassionata получила свое название уже после смерти композитора, оно появилось в 1838 с легкой руки издателя четурехручного переложения сонаты.

В Советское время соната приобрела особую известность благодаря словам В. И. Ленина о ней, записанным в очерке Максима Горького:
«Ничего не знаю лучше «Apassionata», готов слушать ее каждый день. Изумительная, нечеловеческая музыка. Я всегда с гордостью, может быть, наивной, детской, думаю: вот какие чудеса могут делать люди <…> Но часто слушать музыку не могу, действует на нервы, хочется милые глупости говорить и гладить по головкам людей, которые, живя в грязном аду, могут создавать такую красоту. А сегодня гладить по головке никого нельзя — руку откусят, и надобно бить по головкам, бить безжалостно… »

Соната состоит из 3-х частей:
1. Allegro assai
2. Andante con moto - attacca
3. Allegro ma non troppo - Presto

Общее время звучания - около 23 минут.

Allegro assai

A sonata-allegro form in 12/8 time, the first movement moves quickly through startling changes in tone and dynamics, and is characterized by an economic use of themes.

The main theme, in octaves, is quiet and ominous. It consists of a down-and-up arpeggio in dotted rhythm that cadences on the tonicized dominant, immediately repeated a semitone higher (in G flat). This use of the Neapolitan chord (e.g. the flatted supertonic) is an important structural element in the work, also being the basis of the main theme of the finale. The rhythm of the theme is based on the Scottish folk song On the Banks of Allen Water[citation needed]. (British folk songs were well-known in Vienna at that time, and Beethoven, like Haydn, wrote many arrangements for British publishers.)

The second subject is a direct quotation of the first two lines of the folk song, re-hashed to fit the 12/8 time (the folk song is in 3/4). As in Beethoven's Waldstein sonata, the coda is unusually long, containing quasi-improvisational arpeggios which span most of the [early 19th-century] piano's range. The choice of F-minor becomes very clear when one realizes that this movement makes frequent use of the deep, dark tone of the lowest F on the piano, which was the lowest note available to Beethoven at the time.

The total performance time of this movement is about 10 minutes.

Andante con moto

A set of variations in D flat major, on a theme remarkable for its almost crude simplicity. Its sixteen bars (repeated) consist of nothing but common chords, set in a series of four- and two-bar phrases that all end on the tonic. (See image.) The four variations follow:

* Var. I: similar to the original theme, with the left hand playing on the off-beats.
* Var. II: an embellishment of the theme in sixteenth notes.
* Var. III: a rapid embellishment in thirty-second notes. A double variation, with the hands switching parts.
* Var. IV: a reprise of the original theme without repeats and with the phrases displaced in register.

The fourth variation cadences deceptively on a soft diminished-7th chord, followed by a much louder diminished-7th that serves as a transition to the finale.

The total performance time of this movement is about 6 minutes.

Allegro ma non troppo - Presto

A sonata-allegro in near-perpetual motion in which, very unusually, only the second part is directed to be repeated. It has much in common with the first movement, including extensive use of the Neapolitan sixth chord and several written-out cadenzas. The movement climaxes with a faster coda introducing a new theme which in turn leads into an extended final cadence in F minor. According to Sir Donald Francis Tovey this is one of only a handful of Beethoven's works in sonata form that ends in tragedy (the others being the C minor Trio, Piano Sonata Op. 27 no. 2, Violin Sonata Op. 30 no. 2, and the C# minor Quartet.)

The total performance time of this movement is about 7 minutes.

Beethoven made most of the sketches for the piano sonata in 1805 and finished it at the latest in 1806. In September he went to Silesia with his patron Prince Lichnowsky, to the latter's castle Grätz near Troppau. It is unclear whether he first finished the sonata in Grätz, but he certainly had it with him. During his stay Prince Lobkowitz asked Beethoven to play music for French officers. The composer was so angry at this request that he fell out with his patron and departed in a hurry. An account by Paul Bigot, husband of the pianist Marie Bigot, faithfully records the events, "During the journey, he [Beethoven] was surprised by a storm and driving rain, which soaked through the case in which he carried the Sonata in F minor which he had just composed. Following his arrival in Vienna he visited us and, laughing, showed the still wet composition to my wife, who took a closer look at it. Moved by the surprising beginning she sat down at the piano and begin to play it. Beethoven had not expected this and was surprised to see how Mad. Bigot did not let herself be stopped for a moment by the many erasures and changes which he had made. It was the original which he was in the process of taking to the publisher so that it could be engraved. When Mad. Bigot had played it and asked him to give it to her, he agreed and faithfully brought it back for her once it had been engraved". At this time Beethoven was very friendly with the Bigots. Paul Bigot's account is supported by the condition of the autograph score. The manuscript, which is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, did actually belong to Marie Bigot. And the autograph score also displays numerous water stains, which could have been made by the rain.

The expression mark "appassionato" means "passionately". In the Piano Sonata op. 57 this expression does not appear at any point. Its famous popular name "Appassionata", by which the sonata is mostly known, did not come from Beethoven. It was first found on the title page ("Sonata appassionata") of a version of the sonata for piano four hands, which the Hamburg publisher Cranz published in 1838. The association seems to have been successful, because the popular name "Appassionata" has since become inseparably linked with this piano sonata.

(beethoven-haus-bonn.de)

From the writing of his Heiligenstadt Testament in 1802 up to the composition of the "Appassionata" in 1804-1805, Beethoven produced some of his most pivotal works, music that foreshadows and heralds the arrival of what is commonly identified as the "second" period of his creativity. Beethoven, it seemed, had turned inward and begun to produce music only he could fully understand. If he had resigned himself to the futility of his cosmic anger, he also determined to thrust his immense genius in the face of God and Man alike, accepting no limitations upon the magnitude or trajectory of his creativity. It was the Beethoven of these works who unleashed the "Appassionata" Sonata in 1805.

Opening with a dark, enigmatic theme—one of the most striking curtain-raisers in any of Beethoven's sontatas—the work abruptly explodes with what some have called shrieks of rage. The work makes immediate, fearsome demands upon the pianist, calling both for percussive handfuls of chords and accompanimental figuration demanding the utmost delicacy. The movement is driven forward with a demonic intensity and a daring harmonic sense; the opening phrase, as one example, is repeated a half-step higher in the second phrase, momentarily shrouding the tonal center in a strange, unsettling ambiguity. Prefiguring the dot-dot-dot-dash motive of the Fifth Symphony among its rhythmic materials, the "Appassionata" unfolds with a volatile, start-and-stop rhythmic scheme that lends it a particular sense of conflict and urgency. In one of the classic examples of Beethoven's organic motivic sense, the second theme of the first movement makes clear reference to the first; while the genesis of its rhythm and contour is obvious, Beethoven here transforms it into a lyrical and yearning if brief moment of respite.

The second movement, a relaxed andante, is a set of variations on a simple, chorale-like theme that retains a shade of the dotted rhythms of the first movement. The variations gradually increase in activity; a sudden reprise of the more sedate original theme and leads without pause to a savage, impassioned finale. Here, Beethoven makes formidable demands upon both instrument (especially the pianos of his own day) and player; the Presto finale is nothing so much as a pounding blur of fury. The sonata's "Appassionata" subtitle is not Beethoven's own; it was first applied by a Hamburg publisher in 1838.

(All Music Guide)