Beethoven’s Opus 2 consists of three piano sonatas that are now known as the Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 2, and 3. These are the first three contributions in what over the span of a quarter century will eventually become a collection of 32 piano sonatas.
In length, depth, variety, and cultural influence, Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas constitute the greatest collection of solo keyboard music in the Western musical tradition. The sheet music of Beethoven’s Complete Piano Sonatas published by G. Schirmer is a total of 689 pages.
You might recall that Beethoven published three piano sonatas when he was 12 years old (posted here on Days 2, 3, and 4). Beethoven scholar Barry Cooper considers it “quite unjustifiable” for these to be excluded from the other 32. To Cooper, Beethoven composed 35 piano sonatas.
The three piano sonatas of Opus 2 are all 4 movements in length, with a pattern of fast-slow-fast-fast. In the first piano sonata, the third movement is a Minuet and Trio; in the other two, it’s a Scherzo. Beethoven will later explore alternatives to this standard architecture.
#Beethoven250 Day 46
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F Minor (Opus 2, No. 1), 1795
Sergey Kuznetsov delivers a wonderful performance of Beethoven’s first piano sonata in a hall in Moscow.
The two outer movements of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 1 are in F minor, with a dynamic and often driving texture, the finale particularly so. The second movement Adagio is in F major (at least initially) and finds a soulful respite from the surrounding turbulence.