Beethoven "Waldstein" Sonata
274
Published 2024-07-17
00:00 Allegro con brio
10:12 Introduzione - Adagio molto
14:13 Rondo - Allegretto moderato - Prestissimo
If you had asked me as a teenager why I wanted to become a pianist, I might have answered that it was in order to play the Beethoven Sonatas. My parents and family were, musically, very German-biased. We had the Schnabel recordings, and Rudolf Serkin was the pianist I heard the most, growing up. Over the years, I've ended up performing a majority of the 32 sonatas, some on fortepiano, and studying or teaching almost all of them. But most of my Beethoven performances are preserved only on aging audio cassettes, so they're unrepresented in the archive that I'm creating on YouTube. (There's one exception, the little Opus 78 sonata in F-sharp, from a 1990s doctoral recital.) The "Waldstein" has been a long-time companion, and always one of the most rewarding to perform.
I'm thankful to my teacher at NEC, Theodore (Ted) Lettvin -- a virtuoso pianist, student of Serkin, and a friend of Horowitz -- for insisting that I complete ten Czerny Études before learning the "Waldstein" for my Senior Recital in 1977. The results were quick and tangible. I could feel the "School of Velocity" bringing my technique forward to where I could handle Beethoven's scales and arpeggios -- a workout at times in this piece - with ease and speed. He also recommended separate octaves in the famous octave glissando passage in the finale, which didn't work at all. (Nor am I able to play an actual octave "gliss" --Lettvin would lick his thumb and fifth finger first -- so I'm thankful for the 'fake' version, found in the Schnabel Edition, that divides the passage between the hands, leaving out some octave doubling. Who cares? On Beethoven's piano the passage was no problem.)
Overall, what I like best about the "Waldstein" is its feeling of joyous running. or better yet, driving, at high speeds over an open expanse. In contrast, the "Introduzione", the sonata's middle section, explores extremes of slowness, like a camera zooming in on tiny details, in between the outer movements' wide-angled panoramas.
Whenever I come to it, the single held note -- "G' at 14:13, a transition to the finale -- creates a distinct image and sensation: an arrival at a summit. Take a moment (there's a fermata) to savor the view and breathe the mountain air. Then, starting with the same G, a sublime, simple melody sounds, distant, awash in pedal, before the eventual descent.