A Dedication to Haydn
Sonata Op. 2 no. 2, one of Beethoven’s earliest works, was dedicated to his teacher Joseph Haydn.
It is hardly an immature piece of work though composed in his early years in Vienna.
Sonata Op. 2 no. 2 first movement
Together with other sonatas within Op. 2, each with four movements instead of three, are broadly conceived creating a format like that of a symphony through the addition of a Minuet or Scherzo.
Beethoven was experimenting with tonal material in his earliest published works, and this piece of the sonata’s first movement clearly demonstrates that.
After establishing the key of A major throughout the first theme, Beethoven begins the transition to the dominant.
Various key changes happen throughout the second theme, the development section and the recapitulation give audience the feeling of constant movement and uneasiness.
Ludwig van Beethoven
In the history of classical music, Beethoven encaptulates almost all of its wonder and mythology. He was the demigod, a tragic yet otherworldly genius.
He was scornful of the aristocratic society, at heart a republican.
Early life
Beethoven was born in the elegant but provincial city of Bonn, his early music training began with his father – a court tenor and a harsh instructor.
Beethoven’s childhood grew difficult as his father declined into alcoholism, making Ludwig the virtually the sole breadwinner of the family during his teenage years.
Fortunately, his talent was recognized at a very early age. In 1787, a young Beethoven travelled to Vienna, his heart set on studying under Mozart. However it was interrupted by the death of his mother.
Settling in Vienna
Three years later, Beethoven returned to Vienna and settled there for the rest of his life. He furthered his study under Haydn, Albrechtsberger, and Salieri.
Very soon, Beethoven established himself as a virtuoso pianist and after refining his initial rough style of performing, his pianistic supremacy was rarely challenged.
Beethoven, as the young rising star was fully admired by the aristocratic society, for his amazing powers of improvisation both when given a theme, and in developing an idea within a sonata movement.
Hearing difficulties
Unfortunately, around the early 1780s Beethoven developed hearing difficulties, and he declined into despair, once even attempting suicide in order to free himself.
In all of the stories of Beethoven’s misanthropy, his eccentricity and wildness dated from this decline in his hearing.
The acute physical pain frequently caused him anger and frustration, and the patience of his friends and family were also frequently tested.
Shaping his way as a great composer
The increasingly worse hearing condition gradually diminished Beethoven’s confidence to be a concert pianist, but in the meantime, his imaginative power as a composer grew much greater.
Beethoven’s maturity as a composer was marked two years earlier by his Eroica symphony, which he had originally conceived intending to dedicate to Napoleon Bonaparte.
With this piece of work, the music scene entered the age of Romanticism.
The post-Eroica decade is marked by many Beethoven’s most melodic masterpieces.
It is a fruitful period including the opera Fidelio, the Rasumovsky string quartets, the Violin Concerto, the fourth and fifth piano concertos, and some magnificent piano solo works, notably the Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas.
However, in terms of intensity and originality, the finest works had yet to come.
Around the middle of the 1810s, Beethoven dedicated himself to producing the greatest continuous cycle of composition in history: the last five piano sonatas, the last five string quartets, the symphony No. 9 etc.
There is no doubt these masterpieces are characterised by ever greater abstraction and contrast; by the violence mixed with lyrical passages that seem to melt into silence; and by the sense of strong self-expression.
Death
Beethoven died in a terribly stormy night at Vienna, aged 57, his international fame had reached a peak even Mozart had never seen.
To this day, the public are still amazed by his death legend – the dying man had shaken his fist at the heavens that the terrible storm had raged in Vienna, as thunder and lightning were striking the town.