Piano Sonata No. 28 (Beethoven)

As with the previous sonata, it is unclear why Beethoven wrote Op. 101. The earliest known sketches are on leaves that once formed the parts of the Scheide Sketchbook of 1815–16. It shows the first movement already well developed and notated as an extended draft in score, and there are also a few preliminary ideas for the final Allegro.{{Cite web|title=Ludwig van Beethoven, Skizzenblatt zur Klaviersonate op. 101, 1. und 4. Satz, Autograph |url=https://www.beethoven.de/de/media/view/6114035556679680/ |access-date=8 April 2022 |publisher=Beethoven House|location=Bonn|language=de}}

File:Beethoven opus 101 manuscript.jpg

Beethoven himself described this sonata, composed in the town of Baden, just south of Vienna, during the summer of 1816, as "a series of impressions and reveries." The more intimate nature of the late sonatas probably has some connection with his deafness, which by this stage was almost total, isolating him from society so completely that his only means of communicating with friends and visitors was via notebooks.

Beethoven offered the sonata for publication in a letter to Breitkopf and Härtel on 19 July 1816, when it was still far from complete. Eventually it was sold to the local Viennese publisher Sigmond Anton Steiner, after its completion. It was published in January 1817, and would appear in public the following month after delays.

The Piano Sonata No. 28, Op. 101 is the first of the series of Beethoven's "Late Period" sonatas (although sometimes Op. 90 is considered the first), when his music moved in a new direction toward a more personal, intimate, sometimes even introspective, realm of freedom and fantasy. In this period he had achieved a complete mastery of form, texture and tonality and was subverting the very conventions he had mastered to create works of remarkable profundity and beauty.{{citation needed|date=December 2012}} It is also characteristic of these late works to incorporate contrapuntal techniques (e.g. canon and fugue) into the sonata form.

This was the only one of his 32 sonatas that Beethoven ever saw played publicly; this was in 1816, and the performer was a bank official and musical dilettante.Joseph Braunstein, Liner notes to the Michael Ponti recording of Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7

{{Listen

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| title = I. Etwas lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung

| filename2 = Beethoven - Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101 - II. Lebhaft. Marschmäßig.ogg

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| title3 = III. Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll
IV. Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit

| description3 = Performed by Daniel Veesey; from Musopen

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This piano sonata consists of four movements:

{{ordered list|list_style_type=upper-roman

|Etwas lebhaft, und mit der innigsten Empfindung (Somewhat lively, and with innermost sensibility). Allegretto, ma non troppo

|Lebhaft, marschmäßig (Lively, march-like). Vivace alla marcia

|Langsam und sehnsuchtsvoll (Slow and longingly). Adagio, ma non troppo, con affetto

|Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr, und mit Entschlossenheit (Swiftly, but not overly, and with determination). Allegro

}}

A complete performance of the work takes about 19–22 minutes.

File:Sonata No. 28 1st Movement.png

This movement is in A major, {{music|time|6|8}} time, and in sonata form. The tempo marking for the opening movement, Etwas Lebhaft und mit der innigsten Empfindung, is roughly translated as "somewhat lively and with the warmest feeling." (This term is used on the first published score but not on the autograph, which has only "Allegretto ma non troppo.See IMSLP.)

Four-part harmony and contrapuntal texture is used throughout the movement. Though the sonata is marked as being in A major, Beethoven does not write any cadences on the tonic key; the exposition and development do not include a single root position A major chord. The first tonic chord in root position appears towards the end of the recapitulation. It appears once more at the end of the recapitulation, but even then is blunted by the omission of the fifth scale degree.

File:Sonata No. 28 2st Movement.png

The second movement is in F major, {{music|time|4|4}} time. It takes the form of a march in ternary form, and is characterized by dotted rhythms, harmonic dislocation and alternation between static and accelerando. The middle section is in B{{music|flat}} major, mostly composed in strict canonic structure.

File:Sonata No. 28 3st Movement.png

The third movement is in A minor, and in {{music|time|2|4}} time. The opening melody of the first movement is recalled just as the movement nears its conclusion and segues into the finale.

File:Sonata No. 28 4st Movement.png

The Finale in {{music|time|2|4}} time begins without pause, and returns to the key of the first movement, in A major. It is a grand contrapuntal movement in which Beethoven explored the newest keyboard set in his command, using the lowest E (E₁) on the piano (marked "Contra E"), at the retransition and near the end of the movement. This movement is the longest and most technically challenging one in the sonata, including a dense and 100-bar-long fugato in four voices as its development section.{{Cite book |last=Beethoven |first=Ludwig van |url= |title=Klaviersonaten|others=Jochen Reutter, Pavel Gililov, Alexander Jenner, Hans Kann, Naoyuki Taneda |year=2018|editor-last=Hauschild |editor-first=Peter |edition=1st |volume=3|publisher=Universal Edition|location=Vienna|at=preface, p. VI |language=de, en, fr}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last=Greenberg|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Greenberg|title=Beethoven's Piano Sonatas|publisher=The Teaching Company|location=Chantilly|year=2005|isbn=978-1-59803-0143|ref=none}}

{{Commons category|Piano Sonata No. 28 (Beethoven)}}

• {{wikicite|ref=IMSLP|reference={{IMSLP|work=Piano Sonata No.28, Op.101 (Beethoven, Ludwig van)|cname=Piano Sonata No. 28}}}}
• [https://download.guardian.co.uk/sys-audio/Arts/Culture/2006/12/13/02-28_amaj_op101.mp3 A lecture] by András Schiff on the Op. 101 sonata
• [https://archive.org/details/beethovenschnabel7/87+-+Klaviersonate+Nr.+28+A-Dur+op.+101+-+I.+Etwas+lebhaft+und+mit+innigster+Empfindung.mp3 1934 recording] by Artur Schnabel of the Op. 101 sonata
• {{AllMusic|id=piano-sonata-no-28-in-a-major-op-101-mc0002365644|title=Piano Sonata No. 28, Op. 101}}

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Piano Sonata 28

Category:1816 compositions

Category:Compositions in A major

Category:Music with dedications