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(My text about the Hammerklavier turned out to be epic – at least in length! – and too long to include here in full. To read the full text, please visit #sonata29 ) If Op. 101 is a sonata that inspires love at first hearing, the next sonata in the cycle, Op. 106 – the Hammerklavier – rather tends to inspire awe and admiration at first. It towers above the rest like a musical Mount Everest, alluring and dangerous, dwarfing all others through its complexity and colossal scope. In performing it, one experiences Beethoven’s titanic compositional struggle in every note, his vision in this particular work constantly driving him to test the extremes of size and intensity, to push the limits of piano technique beyond anything he attempted before. Later, as one comes to grips with the material, some of the admiration is replaced with love – but the awe always remains. The sonata is conceived on a symphonic scale, with a four-movement structure that could be viewed from two
