Form
Unlike a typical sonata, this piece consists of two highly contrasting movements:
- Mit Lebhaftigkeit und durchaus mit Empfindung und Ausdruck (With liveliness and with feeling and expression throughout)
- Nicht zu geschwind und sehr singbar vorgetragen (Not too swiftly and conveyed in a singing manner) (cantabile)
The first movement is written in a 3/4 tempo, sounding mysteriously agitated and restless, described by Beethoven as 'a contest between the head and heart', based on the situation of the Count deciding whether he should marry a young Viennese dancer. It starts out with powerful chords, responded by more subdued material. The falling semitone, particularly the G-F sharp, dominates the first and second subject groups, and most of the episodic work between.
The second movement, a rondo in the tonic major, however, quiets down into a beautiful melody with a 2/4 rhythm. The two contrasting movements suggest an agitated situation calmed by restful contentness. Notably, Beethoven uses German tempo marks for both movements.
English composer Bramwell Tovey characterized the movement as one 'full of passionate and lonely energy'. This contrasting gesticulation of emotion is especially evident in the piece's discernible dialogical form, where the head exposes an idea which is thereafter disputed by the heart.
Read more about this topic: Piano Sonata No. 27 (Beethoven)
Famous quotes containing the word form:
“Others form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed, whom I should really make very different from what he is if I had to fashion him over again. But now it is done.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“All of women’s aspirations—whether for education, work, or any form of self-determination—ultimately rest on their ability to decide whether and when to bear children. For this reason, reproductive freedom has always been the most popular item in each of the successive feminist agendas—and the most heavily assaulted target of each backlash.”
—Susan Faludi (20th century)
“His form is fixed in my eyes,
his touch in my limbs,
his whispers in my ear,
and his heart is kept in my heart.
So what can Fate tear in two?”
—Hla Stavhana (c. 50 A.D.)