40. Classic Beethoven

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1 Beethoven: String Quartet No. 9, Op. 59, No. 3 (“Razumovsky”) This week, we’re listening to classic Beethoven, a piece for solo piano and another for string quartet. A relatively early sonata, Beethoven’s opus 10, the 15-minute piano sonata on this program nonetheless contains hints of the composer’s stylistic hallmarks: questioning themes (though, here, often without the requisite “answers”); adventurous development sections, sometimes traveling far afield harmonically and melodically; and a vibrant, striving finale. After the piano sonata, we jump into a later string quartet. Building on the ideas heard in the earlier sonata, this quartet begins on particularly rocky harmonic ground, with an intriguing introduction that meanders through several remote keys before finally landing, part-way through the exposition, in C Major.