BEETHOVEN'S PIANOFORTE SONATAS played by EDWARD ISAACS
Sonata in F minor (Op. 2, No. 1) i. Allegro; 2. Adagio ; 3. Menuetto: Allegretto ; 4. Prestissimo
(Dedicated to Joseph Haydn )
' the form of the Sonata ', wrote Wagner, ' is the transparent veil through which Beethoven seems to have looked at all music'. And it would seem to follow that the sonatas in their grandeur, their variety, and their emotional progression, faithfully reflect the composer's artistic life.
Beethoven wrote thirty-two sonatas for the pianoforte, the first (dedicated to Haydn) in 1796, and the last in 1822, five years before his death. Historians are agreed that the development of Beethoven's art is divided into three periods, each marking a definite style. The sonatas to be heard this week are placed by most critics in the earliest period, which, built at first on Haydn and Mozart, progressed gradually towards the individual style that was to he so marvellously expressed in the best creative years of his life-the so-called middle period. But when listening to the sonatas, speculations of this sort quickly give way to unquenchable amazement at the infinite variety and beauty of the themes, the splendour of the designs, and the emotional depths revealed in the sonatas, whether the listener is hearing them for the first time or the hundred and first.
(Continued overleaf.)