The Beethoven Piano Sonatas from a Performer's Perspective:

It was Louis Kentner who suggested that the Beethoven Piano Sonatas should be presented to the first visitor from Mars as the supreme glory of civilisation on earth, a sample of man's endeavour 'which he could put in his luggage and take back to his planet'. If Bach's 'Well-Tempered Clavier' is the Old Testament of Music, then the Beethoven 32 Sonatas can be considered the New. This is true not only for pianists but for all musicians, and before turning to a pianistic viewpoint it may be worthwhile to remember that Arnold Schoenberg, one of the greatest composition teachers of all time, constantly referred to the Sonatas in both his class teaching and in his composition treatise. Heinrich Schenker and Donald Francis Tovey made extensive studies of all thirty-two works, whilst Walter Piston's exemplary courses in Harmony and Counterpoint are full of examples from the cycle. Orchestration students have been trained for generations from the Sonatas, as have composers, often by 'modelling' the structure of a new work on one of Beethoven's movements. From a performance practice standpoint they are watershed works, for in their entirety their compositional development parallels to a striking extent the complex development of the forte piano. In short, Beethoven's Testament is of fundamental significance to every musical discipline imaginable.

To an aspiring performer, the Sonatas are an almost overwhelming group of masterpieces that present awesome interpretive, technical and spiritual challenges. There is a long history of performance, though surprisingly public concertising of the works only really became firmly established with Clara Schumann, Hans von Bulow and Franz Liszt.

In their younger days, Liszt and Chopin were not above performing only a single movement from one of the more popular sonatas( e.g. the first movement of the "Moonlight") or even presenting a "pot pourri" of three movements from different works! Needless to say, by the time Sir Charles Halle performed all 32 Sonatas in his celebrated London cycle of 1861, performers had become a little more reverential. Eugen d'Albert was perhaps the first 'great' pianist to regularly perform Beethoven cycles, though names such as Edouard Risler(France) and Jose Vianna da Motta ( Portugal) should not be forgotten. I also have the greatest of respect for Anton Rubinstein and Ferruccio Busoni, artists who thought nothing of sitting down and performing five or six Beethoven Sonatas at one sitting. Myra Hess, Edwin Fischer and Wilhelm Kempff, believed that Busoni's interpretation of the last four Sonatas could never be equalled, let alone surpassed. It is certainly true that Busoni's pupil, Egon Petri, made phenomenal recordings of these works.

Though it is impossible to mention every performer, as a Scottish pianist I am naturally deeply interested in the recordings and editions of Frederic Lamond, as well as the "English" School, represented at its best by Myra Hess, Clifford Curzon and Solomon. Of the recorded cycles available I deeply admire Wilhelm Kempff's first set from the 1930's, as well as Schnabel's pioneering cycle and those of Claudio Arrau, Alfred Brendel and Daniel Barenboim. All are great musicians who have influenced, through their recordings, generations of pianists. One shouldn't ignore the current interest in performance on historical instruments, and artists of the calibre of Melvyn Tan and Malcolm Bilson have the re-creative ability to make their instruments "sing" and so show Beethoven in an innovative and refreshing light.

I have already mentioned that the Sonatas present enormous challenges. It would surely take more than a lifetime to begin to unravel all of their mysteries. It was Artur Schanabel who believed a masterpiece to be far greater than any one performance or interpretation, and I have found this to be particularly true with regard to Beethoven.

In approaching the Sonatas, I have found it most stimulating and helpful to try and imagine the music as either being written for full orchestra or for string quartet. This has given me aid with tonal colour (e.g. the opening notes of op. 81a re-create the timbre of horns) as well as with transforming apparently dull and sequential passagework into great music. What a difference it makes when ones inner ear hears the sequences of the "Appasionata's" development section (first movement) as a dramatic battle in which various solo instruments take up the theme then pass it on! Mere 'padding' becomes intense drama and struggle of monumental proportions.

From the above it the Sonatas could be viewed as 'Great Music' rather than as 'Great Piano Music'. Beethoven was an idealist who expected his performers and instruments to do the impossible. His piano writing is often extremely awkward and unpianistic simply because absolutely nothing was allowed to interfere or compromise with his lofty aspirations. This is true of all 32 Sonatas, though the 'Hammerklavier', op.106 is the most extreme case. Having said that the music could not possibly be transcribed or made more 'idiomatic', as is evidenced by the interesting but ultimately unconvincing orchestration which exists of op.106. Therein lies an apparent paradox.

Charles Rosen refers in his book 'The Classical Style' to the fascinating parallels which can be drawn between Sonatas from different periods of Beethoven which share the same key signature, for example between op.22 and op. 106, or between op.2 no.1 and op.57. Programming Beethoven 'by key' neatly unifies concerts, whilst the immense variety offered by the composer prevents such an exercise from becoming academic or dry. Of course there are seven especially weighted works in the series ('Waldstein, 'Appassionata', op.101, 'Hammerklavier' and op.109, 110 & 111) and it makes sense to put only one of these masterpieces in each programme. For the rest, the aim in planning has simply been to put as much variety and contrast into each recital as possible.

Murray McLachlan, October 1989 (written originally for his first Beethoven Sonata cycle in 1989-91. Revised June 17 2003)