27/01/2019 Expression & Narrative Design in Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op.

110 — Kevin Class

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Expression & Narrative

Design in Beethoven's
Piano Sonata, Op. 110
Essay response to questions posed by
William Kinderman. January 13, 2005
 

William Kinderman:  Discuss the unique design and

expressive meaning of Beethoven’s penultimate piano
sonata, the Sonata in A at Major, Op. 110.  Consider in
particular the relation between the Arioso dolente
sections and the two fugal passages in the nal
movement.  What is the signi cance of the unusual
passage in recitative that introduces this nale?  What

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a nities exist between Op. 110 and other late works by

Beethoven, such as the Missa Solemnis?  O er
comments on the relation between the movements,
and the narrative design of the whole composition.

Just as Mozart relied heavily upon the referencing of

traditional topoi for symbolism of character and
motivation (particularly in the operas and piano
concerti), Beethoven developed a language of self-
referencing that became particularly prominent in
his later works.  Already in the ‘Waldstein’ sonata
one can detect Beethoven’s utilization of earlier
devices of musical symbolism.  In William
Kinderman’s monograph on the composer, he
points to Beethoven’s use of a haunting gure of a
single, stark bass note (sounded in octaves) o set by
chords in the upper winds as found in the Joseph
Cantata, written while the composer was still
residing in Bonn.  This introductory gure led to the
text “Tod! Tod!” in that cantata, conveying a cold
menace that would translate even more
dramatically as it appears at the opening of Act II of
Fidelio (the ‘dungeon scene’).  Here, this nearly
identical setting of Beethoven’s own “death” topoi
provides the ideal dramatic atmosphere, and
emotional tether, for our rst view of the prisoner
Florestan – chained, hungry and near death.  By
choosing to dispense with the orid Andante favori
which was to serve as the “Waldstein’s” second
movement, Beethoven substituted a brief
“Introduzione” to the nale.  This short movement
is noticeably operatic in its arioso like qualities,
inviting curiosity to its narrative design.  Most
revealing is, perhaps its very beginning in which
Beethoven again references the “death” topoi by
presenting bare F’s in the bass which are then,
tentatively, responded to from above.  This bass line
descends in exactly the same manner as in Fidelio. 
Considering the works are contemporary with one
another, it is conceivable that the “Introduzione”
from the “Waldstein” gives way to the same

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symbolic C major of hope and divinity that

Florestan’s aria does in the opening scene of Act II. 
Evident in this example of Beethoven’s self-
referencing are several characteristics of his later
work.  These include his increasing usage of vocal
elements in his instrumental compositions, self-
referencing for the sake of symbolic implication, a
profound interest in death and transcendence, and
movement toward creating works with a directional
narrative.  These elements become integral to
Beethoven’s compositional pursuits during his last
decade, and are manifest in profound measure in the
Piano Sonata in A Flat Major, Op. 110.

Once Beethoven’s deafness had largely consumed

him, he is known to have socially withdrawn
himself.  Reduced to conversing through
conversation books, the communicative imperative
in his music became heightened.  Although music
was always a source for personal expression for him,
his renewed sense of obligation to his art as a
process towards human and spiritual betterment
illuminated a need in him for the most direct
communication of his musical messages.  Beethoven
determined that the human voice provided the most
fundamental means of articulating thoughts and
emotion – just as it does in speech, it can also do in
music.  While large-scale texted works were in his
plans (including the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth
Symphony), Beethoven also had realized the power
of suggestion held by vocal idioms in purely
instrumental music.  This device had already been
utilized by Mozart in the dramatization of his piano
concerti.  Beethoven, in turn, had incorporated
elements of recitative in the “Tempest” sonata and
his scena treatment in the ‘Waldstein’.  By
referencing such a blatant vocal device such as
recitative, Beethoven could entice the listener into
contemplating his world of symbolism and narrative
by utilizing tools readily associated with text in a
purely instrumental idiom.  The recitative of Op. 110

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serves much the same function on a super cial

level, by establishing that a dramatic scena is
underway and demands attention and active
contemplation.  However, this usage is not simply
about gaining the listener’s attention as it is about
connecting on an intimate level.  In addition to
recitative and recitative-like passages, several of
Beethoven’s late works include references to vocal
forms including the arioso, arietta and cavatina.

The use of vocal references the sonata Op. 110 is

successful in inciting contemplation of the work in
view of the large-scale, texted composition in which
he was immersed at the time.  The Missa Solemnis
occupied Beethoven for several years, but was
largely completed by 1822.  However, he broke o
work on the mass to compose his trilogy of piano
sonatas, combining sketches for the sonatas with
those of the mass.  Knowledge of this dual
conception is enough to make explicit the religious
overtones often mentioned regarding these last
sonatas.  However, closer inspection of the sonatas
with the Missa Solemnis reveals the symbolic self-
referencing Beethoven poured into these works.

Op. 110 is often cited as a remarkable achievement

on numerous levels, including the genesis of nearly
all of its thematic material from its rst two
measures of music.  This very idea of seemingly
creating something so large and complex from
nothing draws immediately upon the symbolism of
the Divine that is inherent in this piece.  The
religious connotations of this work are signi cant in
that Op. 110 seems, on many levels, to be a musical
depiction (if not literally programmatic) of the
Passion.  On an immediately tangible level, one sees
the symbol of the Cross invoked in the initial voice
exchange between soprano and bass in the rst bar
of the work (this is the same device employed in the
penultimate bar of the second movement of the
Fourth Concerto where, if Jander’s suggestion that

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this movement is a depiction of Orpheus’ taming of

the Furies, Beethoven casts his religious cloak over
the myth with the ‘cross’ of the voice exchange after
Euradice has been reclaimed by the Underworld). 
The cross is inferred likewise in the dove-tailing of
gurations, such as those at the end of the
exposition.  The physical cross is exploited
particularly in the ‘trio’ section of the second
movement where contrary musical motion
necessitates the crossing of hands in several places. 
This physical gesture is a foreshadowing of the
nale of the sonata where, through the diminution
of the rst fugue’s subject, Beethoven instructs the
pianist to negotiate a passage with crossed hands
that is otherwise playable without.

Beyond the mere symbolism of pianistic mechanics,

the sense of the work is indicative of the Passion.  It
has been noted that the rst fugue subject of Op. 110
is related to the fugue subject of the “Dona nobis
pacem” of the Agnus Dei in the Missa Solemnis. 
Both fugues are based on a subject molded from
ascending fourths in 6/8 time.  In the mass, this
fugue is interrupted by the “music of war” in which
a trumpet in the distance seems to be announcing
the arrival of a saviour (as it also does in Fidelio). 
This ‘war music’ is then dispelled by the soloists in a
recitative calling upon the Lord to intervene in
e ectively the same manner as the tenor soloist
dispatched the unwanted “Töne” in the nale of the
Ninth Symphony.  The fugue returns [dona nobis
pacem] with descending gures just as the fugue of
Op. 110 (which had been interrupted by the 2nd
arioso dolente), including similar treatments of
registrations and reinforced octave climax in the
bass.  It is this parenthetical treatment of the fugue
(progress being interrupted) that further links the
third movement of Op. 110 to the Agnus Dei.  In the
sonata, the pairing of the arioso and the fugue is
somewhat unprecedented, but it is comparable to
the setting of the Agnus Dei with the 6/8 fugue of

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the “Dona nobis pacem”.  This fugue, which shares

its thematic CAN with that of op. 110 is marked by
Beethoven as a “prayer for inner and out peace”.  He
who can deliver inner and outer piece is He who
su ered and died upon the Cross.

Op. 110 is a work lled with worldly pain not found

in its companions opp. 109 and 111.  The combination
of base and sublime are striking in this particular
sonata where the second movement is constructed
on a rather vile folk-song:  “Ich bin lüderlich, du
bist lüderlich” [I’m a bum, you’re a bum].  The
purpose of such music in a work lled with Divine
references is two-fold.  It provides material for
musical contrast on the most super cial level, but
more importantly it ful lls a symbolic purpose. 
Christ’s message on earth was to a ord even the
most lowly a place in Heaven.  As he was cursed and
ridiculed by one thief on the Cross the other sought
and received forgiveness.  In this respect, the most
seemingly unworthy of human beings can be
transformed by the grace of God.  In the case of op.
110, this transformation takes place in the coda of
the last movement in which the “lüderlich”
folksong is combined with the “dona nobis pacem”
derived fugue subject, combined with Beethoven’s
provocative direction “nach und nach wieder
au ebent” [gradually coming to life] and being
executed in a whirlwind coda that eventually soars
into the upper register.

As with the Missa Solemnis, op. 110 makes symbolic

use of register as well.  As the violin solo in the
Benedictus might represent the descent of the Holy
Spirit to the altar, in the sonata the conclusion of the
second arioso nds a series of G Major chords,
possibly signifying the death of Christ.  These
chords are blurred by the sustained pedal and
crescendo that are then taken up by arpeggiation,
from low to high, while also decrescendoing
merging into the 2nd fugue.  This moment is the

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rst indication of successful transcendence in the

sonata.  The rst movement 2nd them group nds
an agonizingly dramatic passage in which a strong,
laborious descent in the bass is o set by the treble’s
attempts to ascend to great heights.  Perhaps
symbolic of Christ’s own spiritual faltering in the
Garden of Gethsemane, the symbolic reaching
upward in the sonata continues to fall back to earth. 
Solomon remarks that Beethoven greatly enhanced
the symbolic power of ascent and descent in his late
works due to his narrative designs, and it seems that
those e orts culminate in op. 110 and the Missa
Solemnis.

At the symbolic heart of the late works of

Beethoven, as exempli ed in the late sonatas as
well, appears to be the e ort to depict, in music, the
timelessness of God.  Beethoven inscribed in his
Tagbuch of 1816 that “Time does not exist for God”. 
As Messaien noted when referring to the
composition of his opera St. Francis d’Assise, it is
di cult for a composer to portray in nity in
musical terms.  In the late sonatas of Beethoven, we
nd an inclination to begin works with music that
does not feel like a beginning.  In op. 109, for
instance, music seems to be in progress – indicated
by a motor guration (the very pulse obscured by
beginning on an ‘upbeat’ that feels like a downbeat)
as if the listener catches Beethoven in mid-
conversation.  Op. 110, in kind, begins in the same
character as op. 109 concludes.  This provides one
link between these two works and incites further
exploration to the larger narrative of the last three
sonatas.  But in op. 110, the timelessness of God
seems to appear most conclusively in the recitative,
where the Bebung on A brings time to a standstill
through a complete lack of harmonic or melodic
motion.  Beethoven achieves this in the Agnus Dei of
the Missa Solemnis through the use of a traditional
topic of stasis on the repeated chords of the “Agnus
Dei” text.  In the sonata, this appearance of the

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Divinity is introduced through the unexpected form

of the Recitative which brings us to the arioso
dolente.

Christopher Reynolds, in his book on allusion in

music, points out the undeniable similarity between
the descending theme of the arioso dolente and J.S.
Bach’s setting of “Es ist vollendet” [It is nished] in
the St. John’s Passion.  While it is possible, but not
con rmable, that Beethoven was acquainted with
Bach’s Passion, he may very well have been
acquainted with the aria from his stay in Berlin. 
Even if he did not know the work rst-hand, he was
certainly aware that this phrase was a topic for grief
and su ering as used by C.P.E. Bach and Mozart,
among others.  However, considering that
Beethoven employs nearly identical rhythm and
uses the same turn at the bottom as J.S. Bach (and
especially considering the narrative of op. 110) it
seems more than likely that Beethoven must have
been aware of the text setting.

In the end op. 110, like many of Beethoven’s late

works, seems to be a composition about a process. 
On a local level, in late Beethoven we see a shifting
of the weight of the sonata from the rst movement
to the last.  In a larger view, this motion seems to
imply that there is a directional narrative that must
move towards a larger goal.  In viewing opp. 109-111
collectively, we can see an implied narrative in the
natures of these works.  Op. 109 is built upon the
idea of upward momentum, but always dispelled
and defeated.  Its ascending scales and gurations
seem to be making violent attempts to break loose
from some restraint (perhaps suggestive of the
violence of birth or creation itself).  The fact that the
theme of the variations returns at the end of the
sonata makes the work re ective, but not
transcendent despite all the best e orts.  If op. 110 is
a depiction of the Passion, with symbolic portrayals
of the su ering, death and ascension of Christ, then

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William Kinderman’s observation that the victory is

not reveled upon but, somehow, seems to burst
forth beyond the nal bar can only suggest that the
nal contact with the Divinity is to be found in op.
111.  If this is Beethoven’s intention, it can be
accepted in the complete lack of worldly strife
encapsulated in the Arietta and ensuing variations. 
The rst movement may be lled with the same
terror and trembling Beethoven used in his Credo,
but it is dispelled in the shimmer of the last
movement.  The Credo of the Missa Solemnis de nes
and con rms belief in the Holy Trinity.  Op. 109
references the Credo through comparable structures
while op. 111 is a work of complete transcendence
and a con rmation of faith as depicted by the
Credo/Cruci xus.  In view of the symbolic
connection of all three sonatas to the mass, one can
accept the religious overtones of the sonatas and,
perhaps even accept them as a further symbolic
a rmation of the Holy Trinity.

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