Sunday Classics preview: Beginning at the beginning, we listen to Beethoven's first piano sonata

Was Glenn Gould a tad, er, eccentric? To put it
mildly. Was he also a bloody genius? Just listen.

by Ken

Our magic number this week is 32 -- the number of piano sonatas Beethoven wrote, ranging in date of composition from 1795 to 1822. You would think that the last sonatas, in which Beethoven carries the form into his new modes of musical understanding, would be the hardest to play. They're certainly not easy, the the early sonatas, rooted as they are in the world of Haydn and Mozart and yet unmistakably partaking of not just a new voice but a new way of hearing the world, are actually harder for most pianists.

The shining exception was Glenn Gould, who was an exception to an awful lot of "you would expect"-type rules. Back in December 2008, thinking about Tchaikovsky's general coolness toward Beethoven --

sent me back to thinking about the late Glenn Gould (1932-1982), the eccentric (to put it mildly) Canadian pianist, who had something close to unmitigated contempt for later Beethoven. Unlike most of us, who see the composer's artistic development as a process of unparalleled broadening and deepening, Gould thought Beethoven became ponderous, pompous, and tedious -- generally unbearable.

Again, this doesn't tell us nearly as much about Beethoven as it does about Gould, but that's still much less interesting than the case Gould made on behalf of the earlier Beethoven works, both in his writings and, in the case of the piano works, in his performances. To the works he believed in, he brought to bear the full resources of his singular imagination, and as a result, many of the earlier sonatas -- works too often thought of as way stations on the path to the composer's "greater" later sonatas -- achieve an emotional stature we rarely encounter.

(Among the Beethoven string quartets, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that Gould had no sympathy for the late ones, reckoned by most of us the composer's most searching and visionary imaginings, and not much more for the daring middle ones. But the Early Quartets, the six quartets of Op. 18 -- ah, these he loved! What a shame it is that we can't hear performances of them lit up with the kind of passion, not a word we often associate with the severely repressed Gould, and insight that abound in Gould's performances of the early sonatas.)

Tonight, finally, I'm going to try to make good on those claims about the passion and insight that imbue GG's performances of early Beethoven. For contrast, we're going to hear his rendering of the F minor Sonata, Op. 2, No. 1, alongside that of the greatest Beethoven pianist of them all, Artur Schnabel.

We've heard Schnabel play Beethoven before: in March 2010 the first movement of the Fourth Piano Concerto from the first recording of the piece I got to know, Schnabel's with Frederick Stock and the Chicago Symphony and his recording of the Farewell (Lebewohl, or Les Adieux) Sonata, No. 27 and the childlike little bagatelle Für Elise; and in March 2010 a composite performance of the Fourth Piano Concerto assembled from his three commercial recordings of the piece. His Op. 2, No. 1 is remarkable in its own right (with Schnabel you never get "generic"-sounding performances of anything), but almost (gasp!) conventional in approach next to Gould's performance.

Gould jumps the piece far beyond the musical world of Haydn and Mozart, which seems ironic considering his feelings about Beethoven's evolution toward his later modes of musical thinking. But again, I'm not so much interested in the theories as in the results. Just listen to the unforced yet heroic drive of the Menuetto.

BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1:
i. Allegro
ii. Adagio
iii. Menuetto
iv. Prestissimo


Artur Schnabel, piano. EMI, recorded in London, Apr. 23-24 and 28, 1934

Glenn Gould, piano. CBS/Sony, recorded in Toronto, Nov. 9, 1974


IN THIS WEEK'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST . . .

It will become clear why we've listened to this sonata tonight.

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