This sonata was composed by Beethoven in 1821 and has three parts. It is, in a way, representative for the group of piano sonatas written by him at the end of his life (he had probably lost his hearing entirely at the time).
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
This is quite intense:
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
The 29th piano sonata (also called Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier) is one of the most difficult works for piano solo ever written by man. It is a bit long, though, so make sure you have about 40 minutes to spare before you start listening to it.
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
You can actually hear how much Beethoven’s musical thinking has evolved while you listen to this sonata. If you compare it to the first piano sonata written by Beethoven more than 20 years earlier, for instance, you’ll see what we mean. It’s musical structure is more complex and sounds at times a bit broken, a bit repetitive, as it expresses what Beethoven has called “a series of impressions and reveries” (see here).
However, the 28th is still an interesting listening experience, so we hope you’ll enjoy it:
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
Beethoven wrote this one 5 years after writing the 26th piano sonata, during the summer of 1814. The 27th piano sonata has only two parts. The first movement is regarded as a dialogue between reason and passion, while the second is seen as a dialogue between lovers (see here, for instance). He hope you’ll enjoy it, because we did. 🙂
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
This time the name of the sonata seems to express Beethoven’s own intentions. The sonata was dedicated to “(…) Archduke Rudolph in admiration”. We don’t know who he was, but we’ll google him later.
Anyway, according to Beethoven’s indications, the three parts tell the story of a farewell, of a period of absence and finally of the departed person’s return (Beethoven wrote the word “Lebewohl” (Farewell) over the three chords of the first part). And now, let’s give it a try:
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
Beethoven dedicated this sonata to one of his students, the Duchess Thérèse von Brunswick (she might be the one for whom Für Elise was written too). So this is perhaps how Beethoven sounds when he’s in love. 🙂 Happy listening:
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. You can find some technical details and the previous sonatas from this series here.
We don’t know much about this sonata. Apart from the obvious fact that it has only two movements, that is, and the historic evidence pointing to 1804 as the year when it was written. Anyway, you might want to listen to it, so here we go:
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. The previous sonatas from this series are here.
This one is perhaps one of the most famous piano sonatas composed by Beethoven, being used for the soundtrack of several movies, the titles of which we can’t remember right now. Apart from being famous, it is quite good, so we think you’ll have a nice listening. Enjoy!
As usual, we want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. The previous sonatas from this series are here.
This has only two parts (Andante and Rondo), so it’s not actually a sonata. Beethoven probably wrote it as an excercise for his students and didn’t want it to be published. His brother, however, thought it should be, and nowadays this little piece is included among Beethoven’s other sonatas, so we thought you might want to give it a try.
We want to thank Bunji Hisamori for his kind permission to post the above audio rendering on our blog. The midi file was downloaded from The Classical Music Archives. The previous sonatas from this series are here.