MIDSUMMER MUSINGS - Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata

The title page of the first edition of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata op. 31, no. 2 (Edition: Simrock)

Soon it is time for me to record Beethoven’s famous Tempest Sonata, a piece I recorded and played many times.

Taking a fresh look at an old program piece can be such a discovery. Each time I bring back a piece, I try to find new ways to perk up their ears and imagination of my audiences. 

When it was newly written, the Tempest Sonata was edgy and probably difficult to understand much like some of our new works are for us today. Imagine how you would feel if you heard the Tempest Sonata for the first time back in Beethoven’s time! 

Most of you know that I love to play new compositions, and I like to work in close collaboration with the composers. Preparing a freshly written work is a bit like painting on an empty canvas. There is not much to hold on to. It’s all about finding the intent of the composer and bringing the composition to life. I find that working on new music helps my interpretation of the classics quite a bit. When I bring back old repertoire my favorite point of departure is all about that clean canvas.

But we also should look at the performance traditions of a piece. There is a revered history of interpretations, which inform and influence my choices, too. I don’t know how many times I have heard the Tempest sonata in my life, and all those recordings and performances are part of my listening expectation of the work.

There is a bit of a problem with the history of recordings though. It is all too easy to rely on other artists and their work, to imitate the recording of Wilhelm Kempf, Alfred Brendel etc.(both famous for their Beethoven interpretations). A piece cannot sound fresh unless the interpretation comes organically from the player, unless we do spend time with the score in search of the genius in the piece itself.

When I view piano videos I sometimes find that a performer copies the interpretation of another pianist, sometimes it is even a combination of recordings. What a pity! There is no sense of surprise, of raw passion and of novelty in simply copying another interpreter’s work. Piece and player won’t feel in-sink.

For me a well crafted interpretation should live somewhere between the two poles of finding new discoveries and of honoring the interpretations handed down through generations of pianists. This holds true for a classical composition I play for the first time and for something I revive from concert programs past. Playing the Tempest sonata is no exception, it too is a balancing act between tradition and innovation.

So how do I start bringing back the Tempest (as pianists like to call it)? Let’s take a look at the process:

Looking at the piece from a bird’s eye view, the Tempest is part of a trilogy. It takes the central position in a set of three piano sonatas known as op. 31 nos. 1, 2, and 3. The Tempest has three movements, so we are actually looking at a trilogy within a trilogy. (The number three plays quite a role in the Tempest Sonata. A lot of motives and ideas are repeated three times).

The middle movement of the Tempest marks the centre of the three sonatas of op. 31, and it is my favorite point of departure in searching for a fresh interpretation: 10 minutes of nearly undisturbed stillness make this second movement monumental and a true stand-out among the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven. 

Contrast and tension are two of Beethoven’s main composition techniques, which takes me onward to the question: if the second movement is all about stillness, what is the opposite? To find our answer we only have to look at movement no. 3, a world of perpetual motion, of a steady, and of a forward-moving pulse. I like to think of movements two and three as ‘stillness’ and ‘motion’.

But what about movement no. 1? 

This is the beginning of movement 1 of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata
(Edition: Arthur Schnabel)

The first movement of nearly all classical sonatas poses for me the most demanding interpretational challenge. First movements are frequently composed in a more complex form and/or experimental style. This holds true for the Tempest Sonata as well.

Tension and contrast are here at its best. A simple quiet A-Major chord opens the piece like a shy question which is immediately answered by a tightly articulated eighth note outburst. The contrast of stillness and motion immediately comes to mind and perfectly forecasts the second and third movement within a few measures right at the top of the piece.

Stillness and motion makes for a compact interpretational view of the Tempest Sonata: The first movement introduces the contrast of stillness and motion, the second movement is all about stillness, and the third is all about motion. 

But there is more to the piece.

Beethoven introduces in the first movement a never before used compositional technique of long held pedal sounds. This new technique sets the mystic stage for a remote and eerie sounding recitativo melody as if ‘sung in a vault’ (as Beethoven himself famously says). 

This is the excerpt also from the Arthur Schnabel edition where Beethoven indicates the pedal (marked Ped. below the score). The pedal is held throughout the recitativo melody.

In the late 18th century the damper pedal was a new addition to the ever developing piano. Beethoven takes immediately to the novel invention in these famous recitativo melodies, and uses the haunting mood to break away from the contrast of stillness and motion as if to reconcile the two contrasting elements.

What’s particularly amazing to me is that Beethoven uses this brand-new pedal sound in a very unusual way. He creates an effect of layered sounds not featured until decades later in the music of Schumann, Debussy and onward. To me this segment of the piece always sounds like a message from the future.

This is really just the beginning of thinking about a new interpretation for the Tempest.

Finding the genius of a piece is a never ending, super fun and fascinating process. Each interpretation and/or recording can only land somewhere along the path of this never ending journey.

Let’s see where my next recording lands! I’ll make sure to include a link as soon as I have one.