Lugansky - Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 32, Op. 111

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 (1821-1822)
Nikolai Lugansky, 2020
From St. Petersburg Philharmonia

I.
[0:00] Intro. (Maestoso)
[1:37] Expos. - Theme 1 (Allegro con brio ed appassionato)
[2:44] Expos. - Theme 2 ( - meno allegro - adagio - Tempo I)
[3:34] Expos. - Repeat
[5:26] Dev. (fugato)
[6:10] Recap. - Theme 1
[7:01] Recap. - Theme 2
[8:21] Coda

II.
[9:06] Arietta. (Adagio molto semplice e cantabile. 9/16)
[11:52] Var. I
[14:06] Var. II (L’istesso tempo. 6/16)
[16:00] Var. III (L’istesso tempo. 12/32)
[17:54] Var. IV (9/16)
[22:58] Var. V
[25:11] Coda


“[…] The first movement’s defiance and steely-eyed anger begin with the urgent dramatics of a brief introduction that rumbles its way into the movement proper. Here, the performing directive Allegro con brio ed appassionato tells everything about the kind of bravura Beethoven has in mind. (The composer had by now abandoned the German musical directives and reverted to the prevailing Italian.) And he doesn’t make accomplishing the bravura an easy matter, for the textures are very lean, often constructed in polyphonic, two- or three-part invention style, and in general looking back to the manner of the last movement of the Appassionata Sonata of 1805. Unlike that movement, this one breathes an air of calm in its final measures, a benign C-major calm that prepares for the serene nobility of the opening of the Sonata’s finale.

Having wrestled with tempests, Beethoven turns to an otherworldly sphere for his very last sonata movement. Titling it Arietta, he presents an adagio theme of exalted (though not, as the name implies, diminutive) simplicity, on which he constructs – no, divines – four variations and a fantasy-like coda. A description can be given of the un-folding of the variations as a progressive doubling of the number of notes in each beat. And of the chains of double trills that seem to emerge, not from the keyboard but from some mysterious and enchanted source. But no commentary is sufficient to describe the effect of music that goes far beyond aural perception, that reaches to rarefied heights of sublimity.”

-- Orrin Howard