Beethoven: Sonata No.23 in F Minor, "Appassionata" (Jumppanen, Kovacevich)

The Appassionata is by far and away Beethoven’s darkest sonata: it is an antipode to the luminous Waldstein, which came just 2 years before. It's probably the greatest sonata Beethoven had written up to this point: it is unabashedly expressionist, distorting harmony, form, and texture all for the sole purpose of achieving a certain kind of emotional effect, creating huge gestural blocks of sound that are shocking in their directness – and which achieve in the end a relentless and jagged sense of tragedy. The only respite comes in the second movement, which hints at the sort of transcendental effects Beethoven would achieve many years later in the very last sonatas.

MVT I
EXPOSITION
00:00 – Theme 1 (Note its minimalist nature – an arpeggio separated in both hands by the distance of two octaves – and the use of Neapolitan harmony to immediately bring you far from the home key)
00:27 – Introduction of Fate Motif in LH (Its basic nature – a half-step downwards – implies the tonal structure of the entire theme, and is itself derived from the “sighing” second half of Theme 1’s first phrase at 0:06)
00:48 – Repeat of Theme 1
01:03 – Transition. Note the uneasy triplet figure, and the prominent half-step-downward resolution at 01:06
01:22 – Theme 2. Remarkably, based on an inversion of Theme 1 – contrast built out of organic unity.
01:37 – Transition. Note Neapolitan harmony at 1:40, which again resolves downward by a half-step, as well as the use of trills (a rapid oscillation between two notes a half-step apart: the similarity to the Fate Motif is not accidental). Tension is built via a sustained scale at 1:50, before a striking transitional theme at 1:58, which again features lots of Neapolitan harmony and half-step movement (see for instance the Fate Motif in the LH at 2:03).
DEVELOPMENT
02:27 – Theme 1, with the second half of the first phrase emphasised
03:05 – Theme 1, given particularly dramatic sequential treatment and modulating by major thirds (E- C-Ab)
03:34 – Transition theme
04:05 – Theme 2, which modulates from Db maj to Bb min, Gb maj, B min, and C maj
04:43 – Extended dwelling on the diminished 7th, recalling its use in the opening at 0:38
04:46 – Fate Motif, now profoundly violent
RECAPITULATION
04:57 – Theme 1. No ordinary recapitulation, and the re-emergence of theme 1 here shows immediately why: the opening of the movement was lean, stark, eerie: but the retention of the LH triplets changes things entirely, giving Theme 1 a pulsating undercurrent, a throbbing menace. And there is another striking feature: the harmony is awry. The whole idea of the development is to build up harmonic tension until the grand return of the tonic in the recapitulation: but although we are in F minor the LH refuses to join the party, doggedly remaining on the dominant.
05:34 – Theme 1, F maj
05:57 – Transition
06:16 – Theme 2, also in F maj
06:32 – Transition
CODA
07:19 – Theme 1, modulating until it directly leads to
07:31 – Theme 2, which itself modulates into a dramatic cadenza at 7:48 beginning in the Neapolitan.
08:22 – Fate Motif, which slows down and dies away until it suddenly becomes a huge cacophony at 8:54.
08:55 – An extraordinary passage, where Theme 2 is absorbed into the mood-world of Theme 1: the key is now clearly F minor, the warm triplets are harsh, the lyrical melody cold.
09:09 – Dramatic figuration
09:21 – Theme 1 rises and falls down the keyboard, fading away into one of Beethoven’s very rare ppps. It’s not an ending of the movement as it is a kind of death, really.

MVT II
09:45 – Theme. Like the theme of the first movement, it too is fairly minimalist. Despite the fact that this is ostensibly a theme-and-variations movement, for the whole movement this theme will never be heard outside its home key of Db maj.
11:26 – Var.1. Gentle syncopation
12:52 – Var.2. Lyrical semiquavers implying a melodic contour, while the LH (at first) just provides the roots of chords. More beautiful than it has a right to be.
14:09 – Var.3. The theme starts to sound, maybe, a little exalted, a little luminous.
15:11 – Var.4. Not a variation, really. Just the theme repeated with octave displacement. The movement ends hanging on a diminished 7th.

MVT III
EXPOSITION
16:13 – The diminished 7th chord is repeated
16:17 – Semiquavers enter, at first almost delicately, but build into a roiling torrent
16:29 – Theme 1. Note the extended use of canonic imitation and Neapolitan harmony.
DEVELOPMENT
17:48 – Before a Theme 2 enters (!), we get development of Theme 1.
18:08 – And here is our Theme 2, a sharply syncopated figure
18:27 – Transition
18:34 – A cadenza much like the one in the first movement – extended dwelling on diminished 7th harmony, beginning with a Neapolitan flourish.
19:11 – RECAPITULATION
CODA
23:04 – A guttural, fiercely muscular theme, repeated first in F min and then in Ab maj
23:24 – Theme 1, played at breakneck speed
23:34 – Closing cadence