Beethoven composed all but the last of his violin sonatas within the space of a half-dozen years, from 1798 to 1803. The first three, Op.12, appeared early in 1799, with a dedication to the Viennese court Kapellmeister, Antonio Salieri. The grandest of them is the last, in E flat major. Its opening Allegro is a virtuoso vehicle for the pianist, while its slow movement forms the expressive high-point of the triptych as a whole.
Beethoven worked on the A minor Sonata Op.23 simultaneously with the F major Op.24, and the two were designed as a strongly contrasted pair. While the first of them is among Beethoven's tersest and most austere utterances, its companion-piece is relaxed and lyrical enough to have earned itself the nickname of the 'Spring' Sonata. It's Beethoven's first violin sonata to be cast in four movements, rather than three, and the additional movement is a scherzo that makes its joke out of the manner in which the violinist appears constantly to be lagging behind his partner.
Of the three sonatas Op.30, completed in 1802, the most imposing is the middle work, in Beethoven's characteristically dramatic C minor vein. The outer works of the triptych are, however, far from negligible. The last is among Beethoven's most sparkling and wittiest works, while the more intimate No.1 is a piece of great subtlety and beauty.
The last portion of the Op.30 sonatas to be composed was the finale of the A major opening work. Beethoven had originally written a wholly different finale, but he subsequently decided to replace it with a set of variations on a gentle Allegretto theme, and to use the first finale, in the style of a whirlwind tarantella, for the more energetic Kreutzer Sonata Op.47. For all the mystique that has become attached to it, the Kreutzer is hardly typical of Beethoven's violin sonatas as a whole. It is, as the composer himself put it, written "in a very concertante style, almost like that of a concerto". Ironically enough, the work's ultimate dedicatee, the French violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, never deigned to perform it.
Nearly a decade separates the Kreutzer Sonata from Beethoven's last violin sonata, Op.96, which was composed in the wake of the 'Archduke' Piano Trio Op.97. Both works find Beethoven's style at its most serene and expansive, and the violin sonata is surely the most beautiful and original of the entire series. It begins with one of the composer's most magical inspirations: the quiet sound of a rustling violin trill. The trill, and the theme it engenders, is followed by a series of arching arpeggios on both instruments whose expansiveness seems to open up limitless vistas.
The slow movement is a wonderful example of Beethoven's abilÂity to create an atmosphere of rapt intensity. As it reaches a long drawn-out conclusion of infinite calm, the violinist adds a single dissonant note to its dying strains. That dissonance forms the springboard for the theme of the scherzo, which - unusually - is in the minor.
The theme of the variation finale is of almost folk-like cheerfulness, though its simplicity doesn't prevent Beethoven from allowing the variations themselves to reach an expressive climax with an ornate Adagio in which the piano's intricate chromatic cadenzas seem to leave the music hanging in timeless suspension.
©Misha Donat
