1809 was a stressful year for the Viennese, Beethoven included. Although he composed five piano works in the latter months of the year — included the Opus 76 Variations (Day 225), the Opus 77 Fantasy (Day 226), and three piano sonatas — they total less than an hour of music.
The Piano Sonata No. 24 was Beethoven’s first piano sonata since the Appassionata (Day 190), and what a difference! Whereas the Appassionata is 25 minutes long and full of fire, this one has only two movements lasting 10 minutes total and characterized by a delicate lyricism.
Beethoven dedicated his Piano Sonata No. 24 to Countess Therese von Brunswick, hence its nickname “à Thérèse.” Therese was the older sister of Josephine, who had married Count Deym. Most (but not all) scholars believe that Beethoven did not have a romantic interest in Therese.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 24 is in the remote key of F# major with six sharps in the key signature. It possibly had a pedagogical purpose to force Therese to play in this awkward key, or perhaps a joke if Beethoven knew Therese enjoyed (or disliked) playing on the black keys.
The Piano Sonata No. 24 begins very unusually, with what seems to be an Adagio cantabile introduction but which is only four measures long. Charles Rosen’s analysis sees it as peculiarly paradoxical:
The four-bar Adagio cantabile that opens the work is like no other introduction — or rather it is not an introduction at all, but a fragment of an independent slow movement. It is a fragment only because it is too short to exist on its own, but it is, indeed, complete. In fact, that is why it is not an introduction: in an eighteenth-century classical form, an introduction is never complete. There are no models or precedents for these opening bars, and they have never been successfully imitated. (Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas, p. 197)
#Beethoven250 Day 230
Piano Sonata No. 24 “à Thérèse” in F♯ Major (Opus 78), 1809
Korean pianist Minsoo Sohn has a wonderfully delicate touch for this sonata.
After the Adagio introduction (or whatever it is), the first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 24 has an effortless serene rhapsodic lyricism that competes with almost incessant flurries of 16th notes.
The second and final movement of the Piano Sonata No. 24 is also Allegro, but shorter and faster and bouncier and more eccentric. It begins with what seems to be a Q & A that perhaps forms the main theme of a rondo, or just a respite from the pyrotechnics.
#Beethoven250 Day 230
Piano Sonata No. 24 “à Thérèse” in F♯ Major (Opus 78), 1809
American pianist Ruth Slenczynska, born 1925, was a child prodigy and perhaps now qualifies as a senior prodigy. She also discusses the sonata afterwards.
Beethoven thought highly of the Piano Sonata No. 24. He once complained about the popularity of the Moonlight Sonata by saying “Surely I have written better things. There is the Sonata in F♯ major — that is something very different.” (Thayer-Forbes, p. 297)
With Piano Sonata No. 24 in 1809, Beethoven has completed exactly ¾ of the 32 numbered piano sonatas that he will write in his life.