Beethoven: Sonata in G Major, No.1 (Kovacevich, Goode)

The first sonata is by far and away the funniest of all Beethoven’s 32 sonatas, and it’s kind of hard to explain why it isn’t one of the most famous of them all: all the movements feature attractive melodies, and it brims with good humour from the subtle to the ironically crass. You’ve got the first movement, where the hands can’t play together and the development is built almost entirely around an apparently inconsequential motif, the second, which is a joyfully overlong and increasingly absurd parody of (bad) Italian opera, and the third, full of wily chromatic movement and wry counterpoint. MVT I, Allegro vivace EXPOSITION 00:00 – Initial statement of Theme 1, containing two main motifs: a descending scale (Motif A), and a group of 3 syncopated chords (Motif B). At 00:09 are repeated a tone lower 00:25 – Extension of Motif A, leading into counterstatement of theme at 00:39 which wanders into B min 00:56 – Theme 2, B maj. Syncopated melody introduced 01:02 – Counterstatem