Beethoven: Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (Appassionata) | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

Beethoven, in his core, is a composer of light, his music uplifting and life-affirming. But in a few works he addressed the darkness with a mastery just as absolute, giving us within the sonata cycle the Pathétique, Moonlight, and perhaps most vivid of all, the Appassionata. The tension in the beginning is almost physically palpable, a coiled spring of dotted rhythms as the hands move in austere unison down and up the keyboard (it is only Beethoven’s magic touch that can transform something as mundane as an arpeggio – a broken chord – in a device of immense dramatic power). A trill – a shimmering shiver, more psychological effect than substance – completes the opening phrase. It is immediately repeated half a tone higher; a new, colder colour brought into the mix. The opening notes of the two phrases – D flat and C – then unite to form the famous four-note fate motif (0:38), not so much a menace but a doubtless promise of the eruption to come. When we think we can’t stand the tension anym