Beethoven Piano Sonata in B Flat Major, Op. 106, "Hammerklavier" - Part 2

There is a special category when it comes to Beethoven; a
catalogue that doesn’t include complete symphonies, sonatas,
concerti, string quartets, etc., but just single movements. This
is the catalogue of great Beethoven slow
movements. Beethoven’s slow movements are like a great
Tolstoy novel. They span the gamut of human experience and also
reach beyond it, into something we cannot understand but all
somehow perceive. Simply put, Beethoven often seems to know us
better than we know ourselves. This brings me to the slow
movement of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata. Unlike those late
quartet slow movements, the slow movement of the Hammerklavier is
not about ecstatic contemplation. Instead, it is a movement of
pure and profound despair. It has been described as “a mausoleum
of the collective suffering of the world,” and “the apotheosis of
pain, of that deep sorrow for which there is no remedy, and which
finds expression not in passionate outpourings, but in the
immeasurable stillness of utter woe.” This is not a movement I
would necessarily enter into lightly as you go about your day—it
requires you to take a moment and enter a world unlike any other.


Today, in Part 2 of this Patreon-sponsored exploration of this
great, in all senses of the word, Sonata, we’ll go through this
slow movement in detail. Then we’ll tackle the life-affirming and
maddeningly complex last movement, which is not quite the
antidote to the slow movement, but perhaps it is the only
possible answer to the questions the third movement so profoundly
asks. Join us!