When Beethoven Invented Boogie-Woogie 100 YEARS EARLY!

Beethoven wrote his 32nd and final sonata Op 111 in 1822. He was 51 years old. With it, he completed an extraordinary and unbroken sequence of masterpieces, dating back to his early sonatas Op 2 of 1795. Nevertheless, Beethoven declared, after its completion, that the piano is “after all an unsatisfactory instrument” and turned to the string quartet as his primary field of compositional research until his death in 1827.

The final sonata has two highly contrasting movements: a ferocious and defiant Allegro in C minor, and a beautiful Arietta with four variations followed by a long, rhapsodic and ethereal coda, which itself contains a transcendent 5th variation. The music in this video comes from the second movement's third variation: a study in compound rhythm, with wild syncopations, which seem to foreshadow the rhythmic innovations of Jazz and boogie-woogie, more than 100 years later.

Beethoven was almost completely deaf at the time he composed this music. Remarkably, his disability seems somehow to have enabled him to voyage into his own inner world of compositional exploration, driven primarily by his own visionary imagination.


MUSICAL EXCERPTS USED IN THIS VIDEO

Excerpt from the second movement of Beethoven’s 32nd piano sonatas Op 111

Pianist: Matthew King

Fasil Say can be heard playing Beethoven’s ‘boogie-woogie' variation here:    • Fazıl Say – Beethoven: Piano Sonata N...  

Penelope Crawford can be heard playing Beethoven's Op 111 on an original Fortepiano in this video. The score is in Beethoven's handwriting:    • Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. ...  

There are numerous recordings of Op 111 on modern piano on YouTube. Two fine recordings by Igor Levit and Michael Korstick can be heard with the scores here:    • Beethoven: Sonata No.32 in C Minor, O...  

Mitsiko Uchida’s recording can be heard here:    • Beethoven: Sonata Op.111 No.32 in C M...  

Andrew Schiff can be seen performing Op 111 here:    • Beethoven Piano Sonata No 32 C minor ...  


Mondrian’s painting, Broadway Boogie Woogie, was completed in 1943 in New York City. It was inspired both by the African-American Blues piano music which Mondrian loved, and by the city grid of Manhattan.


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Edited by Ian Coulter ( https://www.iancoultermusic.com )
Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King