Pierre Boulez Saal
Piano Sonata no.1 in F minor,
op.2 no.1
Piano Sonata no.2 in A major,
op.2 no.2
Piano Sonata no.3 in C major,
op.2 no.3
Piano Sonata no.4 in E-flat
major, op.7
Daniel Barenboim is no stranger
to the Beethoven piano sonatas, nor indeed to performing all thirty-two in a
series. (Why do we call them ‘cycles’? It makes no more sense to me than the non-laundry-usage
‘Ring cycle’, but anyway…) This is,
however, the first time he will have performed them in chronological order.
Alas, I shall be unable to attend all of the eight concerts, but shall report
back as and when possible.
First up, naturally, were the
three opus 2 sonatas. To say that the F minor, no.1, takes its leave from
Mozart’s C minor Sonata, KV 457 – ironically, Beethoven’s minor key par excellence – is only to state the obvious.
Barenboim, however, not only brought out that kinship most strikingly in its
opening figure; he also dramatised the first-movement exposition’s trajectory—arguably
the movement’s, even sonata’s as a whole—in moving away from that
starting-point, via late Haydn, to become more Beethovenian, as we understand
the term. Romantic flexibility, founded on harmony, grew as we reached the
point of return, upon which we fully appreciated how much had changed—and would
continue to change. The closing bars, rightly, owed much once more to Mozart,
without ever being reduced to origins.
Beethoven’s early slow
movements offer a stern, very particular test for musicians. How to communicate
that long line, that hearing in a single breath, while paying due attention to
what may be ornate figuration but is certainly not ornament, and alongside that
dialectic, to convey a simple sublimity and sublime simplicity quite different
in nature, if not necessarily degree, from any music that has passed before? Perhaps
needless to say, Barenboim passed that test triumphantly, his triumph lying in
a reconciliation between private and public, starry skies and fathomless
depths, we all know to be necessary, yet is rarer to hear in practice than we
might hope. Beethoven, helps, of course, but one must show oneself ready to listen
to and understand him; Barenboim most certainly did. The Innigkeit of the minuet seemed already to look forward to Schumann,
alternating in another typical dialectic with proud obstinacy. A euphonious
trio wished to be Mozart, so it seemed, yet also knew that it was already too
late. Backward neoclassical glances to Mozart also characterised the finale,
balanced, however, by an unnerving, well-nigh Chopinesque manic intensity such
as was heard at the opening. To ask which won out would be to miss the point, and
Barenboim knew it.
The first movement of the A
major Sonata mixed Haydnesque wit with a gruff vigour and exultancy that could
be no one else’s other than Beethoven’s. Also present were a particular style
and idea of virtuosity that looked forward to the piano concertos, not least in
the role played in motivic development and, beyond it, sonata form itself. Barenboim
surveyed the extraordinary—truly extraordinary—emotional canvas of the slow
movement with both a lifetime’s understanding and what might be thought,
however erroneously, a young man’s urgent need to bear witness. He made no
attempt to smooth over the shocks, nor to lessen crossed-hand yearning for
resolution, all of which and more always played their part in Beethoven’s
greater dramatic plan. A scampering scherzo nevertheless lacked nothing in the
motivic engine of insistency. Its trio combined ardour, intimacy, and ultimate
grandeur. Affectionate and boisterous, a puppy-like fourth movement proved
every inch a finale in character and structural role.
The opening bars of the C major
Sonata laid out with admirable clarity a conspectus, harmonic and motivic, for
the movement to follow. Invited in, how could one fail to accept? The maturity
of the development section proved especially striking: it is there in the
score, of course, but it still needs to be brought out in performance. It might
almost have been a symphony, but for the instrument (a considerable ‘but’, in
theory and practice). The strange Adagio
proved plainspoken in the best sense: honest, unarguable, disdaining anything
remotely redolent of vanity. It eschewed the merely ‘popular’ in favour of the
human. Controlled caprice, testing the limits of how far music might stray from
the tonal centre, characterised the scherzo. The trio drew on hints already
given in the scherzo—and less ran than sang with them. The finale sang too, of
and almost from a paradise Mozart had known. It asked whether Beethoven, let
alone the twenty-first century, might briefly know that paradise again and left
tantalisingly open that possibility; until furious reaction came, that is,
reaction that was necessarily still related to what had gone before. Wonder lay
in liminal passages as much as in those extremes and in the magical thread with
which Beethoven and his interpreter bound all together.
A first-movement exposition of
immediacy, potentiality, grandeur, and—especially in the second group—incommensurable
dignity announced that the op.7 Sonata in E-flat would be of a different nature
again. How far Beethoven and we had come already! The development did what it
should, developing all those and more, deepening and yet becoming still more
direct as required. Syncopations truly told, nowhere more so than in the second
development of the recapitulation. Again, the slow movement’s breadth of canvas
struck one immediately. Much was related to what we had heard in each of its
three predecessors, yet with palpably greater mastery and, yes, sublimity. It
went somewhere, so it seemed, that no one previously, not even Beethoven, had
so much as dreamed of. The third movement was sung as a good-natured riddle
that held within itself its own solution, so long as one listened. That in turn
necessitated a trio reaction of passion as yet unspoken. The finale is a
movement of surpassing loveliness; so it sounded here. Surpassing moral worth
too; so Barenboim revealed here. Its leisurely progress was justly loved, yet
never too much, bringing forth as it must a necessary, vehement, dialectical
reaction. It sounded as the most human of music in the most human of
performances, both immediate and mediated.
