Beethoven's Pathetique Analysis

Beethoven was famous for a variety of different types of pieces during his life, so his piano sonatas turned out to be very influential pieces in the realm of classical music. Beethoven grew up in Bonn, Germany with an abusive alcoholic father and a mother that he loved dearly, but unfortunately died early in Beethoven’s life. Trying to escape from his father, Beethoven moved to Vienna, Austria to pursue performance and composition and learn from Haydn who lived in Eisenstadt. Because of this transition, he wrote most of his Piano Sonata’s in Vienna, including his Pathetique Sonata (Op 13 No. 8), the piece that I will be discussing in depth. Beethoven’s inspiration for Mozart as well as Haydn definitely directed him towards this specific …show more content…
But why would I pick this piece as my favorite? That is because it is pure genius, fun to play, and also is a glorious display of expression and emotion. In the Grave section, the piece begins to gather its character while releasing an utterly intense and angry expression, mostly sounding like something happened that was bad luck. I believe that is why this Sonata was nicknamed the “Pathetique” (Beethoven would never name his sonatas), because it sounds like something pathetic happened to Beethoven, or to someone he was relating to during his lifetime. This section of the piece is slower but still just as intense as the other sections to …show more content…
The performance was by Schuann Chai in 2012, so by this time, fortepiano performances were pretty rare (I have never played on a historic pianoforte before). The modern pianoforte and the fortepiano have many considerable differences, such as the fortepiano having lower string tensions, no iron framing, and the use of soft leather instead of the modern felt that is used to cover the hammers. The fortepiano also had 61-78 keys, which is less than the modern piano’s 88 keys, but this didn’t necessarily matter as virtually all classical period piano repertoire is able to be played with only 61 keys. I believe that this performance was successful because the tempo is perfect in the beginning with not too much rubato and also the dynamics were pretty expressive, especially with the limitations of the fortepiano compared to the modern pianoforte. Some faults in the performance that I noticed were that some of the articulations and ornaments weren’t as strong as they could be, but for being played way past the time of the fortepiano, I think that Schuann Chai performed fantastic. I think Barenboim performed a little better than she did because he used the modern “proper” instrument (Beethoven specified op. 13 to be played on a pianoforte), better dynamics, and better articulations, even though Chai definitely used the proper