Beethoven’s Violin Sonatas Nos. 4 and 5 were originally supposed to be published together as a contrasting pair. No. 5 later acquired a nickname of “Spring,” so perhaps we should call No. 4 “Autumn” — but a bracingly chilly November kind of autumn.
Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 4 opens with an A Minor 6/8 Presto that immediately begins tossing stuff around the room. When it calms down enough to be only restlessly agitated, we might even detect a hint of self-aware humor.
The 2nd movement Andante is playfully deceptive. A simple back-and-forth between violin and piano seems prime material for an engaging theme and variations, but instead we hear the beginning of a fugue that is soon abandoned for other pleasantly meandering episodes.
The 3rd movement Allegro recovers some of the impetuous passion of the first movement but reveals itself to be a whacky unbalanced rondo structured ABACA followed by an unnaturally long D episode before a coda something like ABCDA. (Is that really the end? Oh, it is!)
#Beethoven250 Day 134
Violin Sonata No. 4 in A Minor (Opus 23), 1800
Canadian violinist Kerson Leong and Louis Lortie perform at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo, Belgium.
In mid-December 1800, Beethoven turned 30 years old, but due to a longtime confusion about the year he was born, he likely believed that he was only 28. (See Maynard Solomon’s “Beethoven’s Birth Year” in “Beethoven Essays” for a definitively lucid account of this crazy mistake.)