Beethoven: Sonata in A-flat major, Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

If Sonata No. 11 was a closing, summarising chapter of Beethoven’s early sonatas, then Sonata No. 12 is a door leading to exciting, hitherto unexplored musical worlds. The structural innovation is easy to point out: out of the Sonata’s four movements, none are in actual sonata form. Instead, Beethoven brings together a moderately slow opening movement (a theme with variations), a blazing scherzo, a funeral march and a quicksilver finale to form a fascinating story arc. The musical development from Beethoven’s earlier sonatas is harder to pinpoint. Rather than any specific element, for me it’s a sense of a gradually eroding barrier between the content of the music and the emotions embodied within. From now on, Beethoven will push further and further in an attempt to capture ever more nuanced shades of emotion. He succeeds greatly, and his music embodies emotions ever more complex and multi-layered, ever harder to describe, but also ever easier for us to relate to; they feel closer, more realistic and al