Program Notes: Pianist Emanuel Ax in Recital

By Tristan McKay

Ludwig van Beethoven may at first seem to have little in common with Arnold Schoenberg; the former famously bridged the gap between the Classical and Romantic periods while the latter embraced atonality and created his seminal 12-Tone System of composition in the early 20th Century. In this program of notable works by Beethoven and Schoenberg, Emanuel Ax illuminates what these stylistically contrasting composers share: bold visions and trailblazing compositions that defied convention and forever changed the course of music history.  

Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas are a staple of the classical piano repertoire, and for good reason. Composed over the course of his career, the sonatas illustrate Beethoven’s evolving compositional style. Although the sonatas featured on this program were composed in Beethoven’s early and middle periods, they nevertheless demonstrate his innovative approaches to style and form. 

The title of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, “Pathétique” is often attributed to the composer himself. However, more recent scholarship has revealed that it was his publisher who gave it the title “Grande Sonate Pathétique.” Composed in 1797–1798 and published in 1799, the “Pathétique” is steeped in a brooding, eruptive melancholy that inspired its epithet. The work’s pathos is evident from its opening Grave introduction, as the initial C-minor chord blooms with anguished chromaticism before building to the explosive Allegro di molto e con brio. The bittersweet Adagio cantabile features one of Beethoven’s most memorable themes; Billy Joel even used the melody and harmonic progression as the basis for his song “This Night” and credits Beethoven as one of the song’s writers. The “Pathétique” ends with a Rondo: Allegro movement that expresses both grief and mirth in turn. Faithful to the rondo form, the opening material returns several times throughout the movement. 

In the early 1920s, nearly one hundred years after Beethoven’s death, Schoenberg devised his “12-Tone System.” In this revolutionary and highly structured approach to harmony, all 12 tones of the chromatic scale hold equal weight. However, the three works by Schoenberg performed on this program were composed in the decades prior to his developing this system. Instead, they showcase Schoenberg’s earlier focus on what he calls the “emancipation of dissonance” or pantonal music. While most music we know is composed around a central key (such as C-minor), Schoenberg pushed against — and eventually did away with — this practice. In turn, he opened up an electrifying new palette of dissonant harmonies with which to create. 

Composed in 1909 and called his “first atonal masterpiece” by theorist and musicologist Allen Forte, Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11 evoke divergent and compelling characters. The first two pieces open with lyrical and expressive themes that recur throughout. The third piece, by contrast, passes highly fragmented motivic material through an almost stream-of-consciousness series of registers, dynamics and tempi. Schoenberg’s use of these musical elements foreshadows the integral serialism of the 1950s, in which principles of the 12-Tone Technique were applied to other musical parameters such as rhythm, dynamics and timbre. 

When Beethoven composed his Piano Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 2, No. 2 in 1795 (published in 1796), he was experimenting with a four-movement construction — a format at that time generally reserved for symphonic works or string quartets. He mostly returned to the traditional three-movement schema after 1802. The opening Allegro vivace features a spirited character and lively motivic imitation between the hands. Contrasted with this, the Largo appassionato slows time with a solemn dignity and contrapuntal texture. The fluttering Scherzo: Allegretto and distinguished Rondo: Grazioso round off this work. Beethoven dedicated this sonata to his teacher Joseph Haydn, with whom Beethoven studied from 1792–1794. 

Composed when he was just 20 years old, Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces (1894) are his earliest surviving substantial instrumental works. Schoenberg’s admiration for Johannes Brahms, whose works he enthusiastically studied, is evident in his approach to form and use of vibrant chromaticism. The Andantino opens with a graceful theme over an arpeggiated accompaniment in the bass, and the Andantino grazioso features a bubbly theme that dances over a broken octave accompaniment. The Presto begins with an agitated chromatic octave passage that soon gives way to a dreamy, elegant Più lento section. What starts as gentle chromaticism soon intensifies as the music accelerates and returns to the chaotic opening material once again. 

In a letter to Ferruccio Busoni in 1909, Schoenberg expressed his desire to further liberate his music from what he saw as the excessive cohesiveness of late 19th-century music, in favor of subconscious expression and a more covert structure: “This multicolored, polymorphic, illogical nature of our feelings, and their associations, a rush of blood, reactions in our senses, in our nerves; I must have this in my music.” Schoenberg channeled this attitude in his 6 Little Pieces Op. 19, which clock in at a mere 20 to 90 seconds each. The suite’s first five pieces were composed in a single day in February 1911, with the sixth and final piece composed months later following the death of Schoenberg’s mentor, Gustav Mahler. From the curious and intimate opening Leicht, zart to the stark, knelling chords of the final piece Sehr langsam, the six pieces are pithy expressions of nuanced emotions.  

Composed in 1804–1805 and published in 1807, Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 “Appassionata” channels a dramatic character not unlike that of his “Pathétique” sonata. The opening theme of the Allegro assai begins with an F-minor arpeggio complete with stately dotted rhythms and ends with a poised flourish. Fortissimo block chords soon interject, and with them the passionate nature of the work emerges. The Andante con moto is a theme and variations in Db major. The theme is characterized by a rather simple melody, clear harmonic motion and dense voicing. At the end of the movement, a fully diminished seventh chord seamlessly transitions into the Allegro ma non troppo. This stormy and relentless movement builds to a showstopping Presto finale punctuated by cascading arpeggios.