Beethoven V

Reading: Rosen, 404-434

Listening and looking:
Sonata in B-flat major, op. 106 (1817/18)

Beethoven: op. 106: things to consider in your listening and looking.
Scale
Structure
Emotional language
Understanding the beginnings of late Beethoven style -- or is this piece, as Rosen suggests, something else altogether?  This is, after all, Beethoven's only
unapologetic return to the scale of the "Grand" Sonata style of his early works (op. 7, for an obvious example).  Chronologically, this pairs with op. 101;
the last group of large piano works (next Tuesday) all date from 1820-22 and are closely interrelated.  Op. 106 stands alone.  Along with op. 102 #2, it
presents the only purely fugal movement of any of the later works for piano (see the first movement of op. 131 String Quartet for another sample in a
different vein).  As Rosen points out, the fugue reconciles old-fashioned counterpoint and the exigencies of large-scale Classical form (in this case, a kind
of fugue-as-variation with a large-scale tonal scheme involving falling thirds and half-steps).