Aside from Fidelio, 1814 is a year in which Beethoven composes mostly patriotic drivel and pieces for friends celebrating or commemorating specific occasions.
Then a miracle occurs: a beguiling work of great poise and delicacy: the Piano Sonata No. 27.
The two-movement Piano Sonata No. 27 was Beethoven’s first piano sonata in four years, and it traditionally marks the end of Beethoven’s “middle period” (if such a thing makes sense to you). While not at all overtly patriotic, the Piano Sonata No. 27 does signal the beginning of Beethoven’s use of German titles for the two movements, which translate as “Lively, but with sentiment and expression throughout” and “Not too fast and very songful.”
#Beethoven250 Day 272
Piano Sonata No. 27 in E Minor (Opus 90), 1814
Russian-born Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg performing in Brussels at the Queen Elisabeth Competition
The first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 27 has a structural fluidity that for quite some time makes it seem not like sonata form but instead a fantasia that develops out of little conversational phrases, at times energetic, at times lyrical, at times shivering with anxiety.
The second movement of the Piano Sonata No. 27 is a rondo in E major with a long luxurious cantabile theme that might easily be mistaken for Schubert, and which Beethoven knows we want to hear just one more time, and then once again. “Very songful,” indeed.