Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 2 No. 3: 1. Allegro con brio

Lenny Tinturin recorded several pieces long ago for the International Recording Competitions, where everyone had to submit a direct-to-disc (vinyl) recording to the judges, without any filters or edits. Therefore, some of these recordings are scratchy and not touched up. Lenny won three gold medals in these competitions, one for each division! In fact, Lenny played in, and won first place, in over 37 national and international competitions. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany in December 1770… but no one is sure of the exact date! He was baptized on 17 December, so he was probably born the day before. He died on March 26, 1827, in Vienna, Austria. Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical music repertoire and span the transition from the Classical period to the Romantic era in classical music. Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2, No. 3, is a sonata written for solo piano, composed in 1795 and published in 1796 in Vienna, Austria. It is dedicated to Joseph Haydn and is often referred to as one of Beethoven’s earliest “grand and virtuosic” piano sonatas. All three of Beethoven’s Op. 2 piano sonatas contain four movements, an unusual length at the time, which seems to show that Beethoven was aspiring towards composing a symphony. It is both the weightiest and longest of the three Op. 2 sonatas, and it presents many difficulties for the performer, including difficult trills, awkward hand movements, and forearm rotation. It is also one of Beethoven’s longest piano sonatas in his early period. With an average performance lasting just about 24–26 minutes. Here, you will be hearing Lenny Tinturin performing only the 1st movement, Allegro con brio, as required by the International Recording Competition, for which he won a Gold Medal. Structure The sonata, in C major, consists of four movements: I. Allegro con brio, common time II. Adagio, 2/4, E major III. Scherzo: Allegro, 3/4 IV. Allegro assai, 6/8 I. Allegro con brio The first movement follows the sonata allegro format of the classical period and borrows thematically from Beethoven’s Piano Quartet No. 3 in C major,[5] WoO 36, from a decade earlier. The movement opens with the main theme in the tonic key, beginning with a double-thirds trill-like pattern. This opening passage is infamous for pianists to play, and Arthur Rubinstein even used this passage to test pianos before performing on them. This pattern leads into an energetic outburst of a broken-chord and broken-octave section. The second theme of the exposition begins in the key of G minor and is repeated in D minor at measure 33. It is not until measure 47 that the traditional dominant key is finally reached, where a subsidiary theme in the second thematic group appears, marked “dolce.” A forte shows later, leading to a very rich melody with left and right hand. Then a similar outburst of a broken-chord and broken-octave sections appears in fortissimo. Then it ends with some difficult trills and an octave scale. Beethoven opens the development by improvising on trill patterns introduced in the end of the exposition, which are much more difficult to play. Following a broken-chords section filled with harmony changes, the main theme is restated in D major (pianissimo), the supertonic key of C major. Then a fortissimo and Beethoven’s very common syncopations appears in the music giving a rhythm, this continues on to the resolution. The recapitulation is a key change from G major to C major, which is finished by a cadenza, which begins with a sudden A-flat major chord. The cadenza is very light and vibrant, and it ends with a long trill and descending chromatic scale in the right hand. The first movement is about 10 minutes long and is one of Beethoven’s longest movements from his early period.