A fugal sonata without a fugue: Beethoven's op.102 no.

1
Author(s): LEO BLACK
Source: The Musical Times , WINTER 2014, Vol. 155, No. 1929 (WINTER 2014), pp. 41-47
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.

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 LEO BLACK

A fugal sonata without a fugue: Beethov

op. 102 no. i

fugue: A composition, or a compositional technique, in which imitative counterpoint

involving one main theme is the most important or the most characteristic device of
formal extension.
( The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians (London, 1980))

would have challenged even the genius of Edmund Rubbra, he who

This study
apart from is
beingby nocomposer
a major manner ofdevote
could happily meansan hour an analysis, something which
long Oxford lecture to the vicissitudes undergone by the subject and its
constituent intervals in the course of a single Bach fugue. Unlike most
academic analysts, he could at the same time delight and enlighten. Mine is
rather an attempt to rationalise my grounds for a long-standing conviction
that Beethoven's Cello Sonata in C op.102 no.i, which, unlike its companion
and four out of the final six for piano, lacks a fugue, is nonetheless 'fugal'.
Fugue was brought to a high point of perfection in JS Bach's Das
wohltemperierte Klavier and Die Kunst der Fuge, but Beethoven's ever
increasing interest in the form likewise took him to new peaks of achieve
ment. A climax was reached in twin masterpieces composed some five years
apart - the finale of the 'Hammerklavier' Piano Sonata in Bb op.io6 (1818)
and the Grosse Fuge op. 133, original finale of the String Quartet in the same
key, op.130 (1825-26). The next quartet (C# minor, op.131) opened with one
of his profoundest and most thoughtful fugues, while the 'Et vitam venturi
saeculi' of the Missa solemnis in D op.121 (1822-23) similarly explored the
heights and depths of fugue.
Counterpoint was for centuries a nature reserve attracting the finest
scholarly minds. The Austrian composer Johann Joseph Fux drew up a first
definitive guide to its practices in his 1725 classic Gradus ad Parnassum, in the
belief that he was codifying counterpoint as practised by its greatest master,
Palestrina (1525/26-1594). In fact his thinking was already conditioned by
the onset of the age of harmony. J S Bach carried that harmony-counterpoint
synthesis to its greatest height, and Beethoven studied the '48' closely while
a pupil of Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-98) in his native Bonn. At the
end of 1792 he became all too briefly Haydn's pupil in Vienna; the ageing
master soon lost interest, but counterpoint studies continued in the same
city (which Beethoven would never leave) with the far more conscientious
JG Albrechtsberger (1736—1809).

the musical times Winter 2014 41

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 42 Afugal sonata without a fugue: Beethoven op. 102 no. 1
i. See the author's 'The four
seasons of Franz Schmidt',
in The Musical Times vol.155
no.1928 (Autumn 2014),
pp. 5-29.
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Under way to his twin fugal peaks, Beethoven was not short of practice.
The Piano Sonata in A major op.ioi sported a fugue as its finale, so too did
the D major second of the two cello sonatas that make up his immediately
succeeding opus number (being in a less popular form, they appeared in
print later though written earlier), and as would his penultimate Piano
Sonata in At» major op.no (1821-22).
The 1959 book Fugue in Beethoven's piano music by the Oxford scholar
John Cockshoot traced the manifold incorporation of fugue into the greatest
of all collections of music for the instrument, his choice of subject affording
him an overview of Beethoven from the fugue that ended the 'Eroica'
Variations in 1802 to the fugal section in the opening movement of his very
last piano sonata (C minor, op.m, 1821-22) and the penultimate 'Diabelli'
Variations from a year later still. Cockshoot's analyses were very thorough
and his knowledge of fugue's technicalities impressive, though his doctoral
brief precluded any deep consideration of the place of counterpoint and
fugue in a composer's personality — something which in that day and age
could have led him dangerously close to the forbidden fruit, hermeneutics.
For Albrechtsberger Beethoven worked 24 exercises in double counter
point at the tenth. As Cockshoot put it, 'Sometimes three- and four-part
texture is achieved by the addition of one or two parts which are either free
or run in parallel tenths with the original voices', and that indeed happens
at quite an early stage of op. 102 no.2's fugal finale. In the 400-bar finale of
the 'Hammerklavier' Sonata Cockshoot identified 16 sections, calling some
merely 'Episode', while for others he specified the particular technique
found there - 'second middle section in Augmentation', '5th middle section
in stretto with subject in direct form and inversion', and so on. All of which
technicalities Beethoven had had to learn with Albrechtsberger, though
what his mature genius made out of them is a different matter. Cockshoot
also noted the 'Hammerklavier' finale's closing bars in 4/4, which 'cleverly
allow the composer to recapitulate the various positions in which the [3/4]
theme has appeared'. A century later Franz Schmidt would do something
not dissimilar in the opening movement of his 1928 Third Symphony.1
What Cockshoot omitted to do, as he doctorally catalogued the way
in which Beethoven's four successive sketches for op.ioö's fugue subject
gradually approached its eventual form, was note the degree of similarity
between it and the one in op. 102 no. 2 - not great, but interesting to anyone
seriously concerned with the endless development of a composer's mind.
By the time of op. 102 Beethoven was an acknowledged master, but one
briefly at a low ebb. Main causes were poor health, depression and the
failure of Leonore, not to mention the death of his brother in 1813 and his
consequent expenditure of energy on a quest to secure unchallenged custody
of his nephew. One way and another, 1813 produced nothing of value, only
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 a couple of pot-boilers, and serious composition needed to begin again, on
a new level first manifest in the little E minor Piano Sonata op.90 from 1814.
To the American scholar Lewis Lockwood the crucial event determining
the onset of Beethoven's recovery and 'third period' was less any farewell
to his image of Woman in the letter 'to the Immortal Beloved' than his
revision of Leonore as Fidelio, and so his final triumph in the form he had
thought he'd never master.2
Op.90 marked a new beginning, as did the more substantial op.ioi. The
second of op.9o's two movements is marked 'sehr singbar vorzutragen' — to
be performed with maximum cantabile. To me this tune has worn immortally
for close on three-quarters of a century, but the crucial fact is that as soon as
his 'late period' began Beethoven's mind was extended equally in terms of
melody, harmony and counterpoint. A most charming and unobtrusive sign
of that comes in the same movement's second subject. Opening in contrary
motion between the hands, it drops after two bars into a perfect piece of
what Cockshoot would correctly have termed 'diminution and inversion'
(i.e. double-speed and upside-down!) (ex.i).
Between opp.90 and 101 came the two so strongly contrasting cello
sonatas; in op.ioi, with its fugal finale repeating what Beethoven had done
in the second op. 102 sonata, and the first movement's opening returning
before the finale (as in the C major) the progression is apparent. To quote
Lockwood:

These sonatas truly demonstrate a new capacity for quality and integration at a high
level that marks recovery. Although we can certainly identify strong lyrical expression
and strong contrasts in earlier works, still this new turn to lyric density seems to derive
primarily from his tremendous effort to drag his only opera to a final statement.

The two sonatas of op. 102 mark the last occasion in Beethoven's career
when one of his instrumental opus numbers consisted of more than one

2. Lewis Lockwood:
work. There are surprisingly many such numbers — 16 in all. The two
'Beethoven's emergence sonatas of op. 102 are well contrasted, with acute clashes in no.2 and gentler
from crisis: the cello sonatas
juxtapositions in no.i. The D major second sonata sets out with a strong
of op. 102 (1815), in Journal
of Musicology vol.16 no.3
challenge and pulsing semiquavers from both instruments; it soon levels
(Summer 1998), pp.301—22. into a singing conjunct line but reacquires its initial momentum by bar 17:

Ex.i: Beethoven: Piano Sonata in E minor op.90, second movement, bars 45—48

the musical times Winter 2014 43

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44 A fugal sonata without a fugue: Beethoven's op.102 no.i
3-1 am grateful to Graham
Johnson for identifying both
the song and the relevant
passage in its text.
4. The second, answering
statement of a fugue's
subject is known as the
'answer'.
5. Another American
scholar, Kristina Muxfeldt, in
Vanishing sensibilities (New
York & Oxford, 2012) at
least trips one crucial wire:
'the sharpness of melodic
contour and its isolation
at the beginning of the
movement etch it into the
memory much like a fugue
subject (my italics).
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such is Beethoven's mercurial temperament in this sonata. A few bars later,
the second subject seems to quote a song by Haydn, Content, from as long
before as 1792; given such a distance in time one might be inclined to view
this as a purely chance resemblance, were it not for other distant but definite
song-references (see p.48) and the eminently Beethovenian sentiments ex
pressed in Anne Hunter's lines
What though no high descent I claim,
No line of Kings or race divine,
Not all the mighty sons of fame
Can vaunt of joys surpassing mine.3
The slow movement of op.102 no.2 offers dark thoughts of great
solemnity, couched in the simplest four-beats-in-a-bar, and then a divine
song of consolation in the major. The main subject of the fugal finale makes
play with a first, simple version of the complex running scales that pervade
the finale of the 'Hammerklavier' Sonata.
Given the mixture of stringency and tenderness in op.102 no.2 and the
unique severity of its fugal finale, it is almost a surprise to find its companion
work doing without that texture. But appearances are notoriously deceptive
and I would go so far as to call the C major 'a fugal sonata without a fugue '.
Or at least a profoundly contrapuntal work. What Beethoven called it was
a 'free sonata', which it certainly is, given its five-section form (with, as
Lockwood pointed out, 'only two full closes'), its second movement in
the relative minor, and above all its linking of almost all its themes in an
inextricable tangle.
To grasp what made me see this as a 'fugal sonata' one needs to bear in
mind a fundamental principle in fugue, that of question and answer, and
equally of 'real' and 'tonal' answers.4 A 'real' answer reintroduces the fugue
theme precisely as it was when first heard; a 'tonal' answer modifies it, in the
first place to ensure that a move from, say, tonic to dominant is answered
by one from dominant to tonic. That, as we shall see, is very much what
happens in op.102 no.i (fugue or no fugue!) though there are fascinating
additional complications!5 In fact the opening of this sonata generates not
only what could be a fugue subject, but also a continuation even within
its initial statement, since the three falling notes G-F-D at the end are
immediately repeated as the start of the piano's counterstatement, so that
one and the same figure acts as completion of the initial entry but also as the
beginning of a tonal answer. The opening scale-fragment has meanwhile
been turned upside down in the piano's left hand to accompany the falling
figure. Economy could hardly be taken further (ex.2).
The origin of it all is that the octave divides naturally into two halves
(which was one of the very first points stressed by Fux near the start of
Gradus ad Parnassum). The two halves may be equal but they are not
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 identical (see ex.3). For though the tetrachords are exactly the same, in 'A'
one has yet to get to the dominant.
Attention now shifts to the bass and the semiquaver figure that began
the second bar of the cello's theme. The short opening section makes much
play with those six notes, thematic generation happening mainly through
its combination with an upwardly leaping fourth first heard unambiguously
at the end of bar 7 and thereafter present in a variety of guises. It comes
additionally into its own as the A minor Allegro vivace gets under way. The
contrasts here are typically Beethovenian: while retaining the idea of tonic
to dominant and back, in conjunct motion, he in every other respect sets
up the strongest opposition to the opening. Where there was quiet, calm
movement there is loud aggression; where there was major there is minor.
This is a fully laid-out if small-scale sonata-form structure, with first- and
second-time bars and the G—F—D motive, transposed to the dominant,
serving briefly as second subject. Counterpoint is still of the essence though
no specifically fugal element is detectable.
The third section amounts to the work's slow movement, and here
the element of counterpoint is again strongly present. It appears to be
Beethoven's take on something that is by now no longer known except to
scholars — something learned with Albrechtsberger ten years before. In
'species counterpoint' each note of a can tus firmus was matched by a given
number of counterpointing notes (one in first species, two in second, four
in third, with fourth and fifth reserved for special cases and mixtures). Eight
notes to one was Beethoven's invention, and that is what we find for the
first half of this movement! Since performers tend to be unaware of species

Ex.2: Beethoven: Sonata for cello and piano op.io2 no.2, opening

Andante
teneramente

Ex.33
Ex.

the musical TIMES Winter 2014 45

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46 Afugal sonata without a fugue: Beethoven 's op. 102 no. 1

counterpoint they face a range of choices over how to play the passage; how
much rubato is justifiable where so scholastic and regular a device has been
built into the composition? The writing is smoothly scalar after an initial
twiddle, whereas for the second half of the section Beethoven works in
third species (four per given note), the first notes in each group producing a
descending chromatic line that ends in one of the work's big surprises. Here
there is beyond a doubt strong expression, and rubato becomes eminently
justifiable. Beethoven develops a jagged figure in different forms in the
various parts, the development dying away into one marked 'teneramente
This should make one prick up one's ears, for it has all to do with the very
special place of 'tenderness' in so male a psyche as Beethoven's. It marks the
turning point of the entire work; in this all-important 'teneramente ' passage
a new motive, D down to B then up to G, could conceal a quotation from
another song, Resignation. That despairing love-song to a text by Count
Colonel Paul Haugwitz (1791-1868), from a Silesian family influential in
both Prussia and Austria, begins 'Lösch' aus, mein Licht' ('Go out, light
of mine'). Both its musical similarities and its sentiments could be crucial,
were it not for the apparently inconvenient fact that the song dates from
1817, two years after the sonata's composition. The problem resolves itself
since Beethoven sketched Resignation as early as 1814.
Such reversion to a previous mood, 'teneramente', prepares us for
the return of G-F-D and, seconds later, of the melody from the work's
opening - a stroke of genius. For the performer this switch back into the
opening means a change of tempo and rhythm necessitating fine judgment
of relationships. The briefest recapitulation of the first movement takes us
on to the finale.

At which point an important motive, indeed the finale's principal motor,

is a sequential figure very like the main theme of the Prestissimo in the Bb
string quartet op. 130 (it would be the one TS Eliot adopted in a section of
The waste land — 'Under the bam, under the boo, under the bamboo tree').
More immediately it seems to quote one more song, The Bay of Biscay.
This tune by John Davy (1783-1834) has long been familiar to generations
of Englishmen. Once again Beethoven reaches for the scale that opened the
work, but here inverts it to run from G to C, and again immediately from
E to A.

In this finale one more fugal device is reflected: stretto, which involves
a second entry before the first has been completed. The stretto is first only
hinted at, as the piano echoes the final notes of the double run: it will emerge
openly later, in the development section.
At the close of the finale Beethoven's mastery of form manifests itself
in the most memorable way, as he varies and extends the opening of his
development to produce a wondrously peaceful resting-point on the

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 supertonic, Dt» major, which he then eases very gently into the tonic to
prepare for the sonata's rousing conclusion. Here is one of his glimpses of
Elysium, comparable to the Fourth Piano Concerto finale's second subject
or (if not rushed through!) the trio of the 'Choral' Symphony's scherzo.
Kristina Muxfeldt has registered, as did I long ago, this amazing sonata's
exceptional degree of thematic unification;6 here indeed is Hans Keller's
'unity of contrasting themes', and the sonata's cyclic aspect has little or no
parallel in its companion. Could that be just one more way of identifying it
6. ibid. as a 'fugal sonata'?

the musical times Winter 2014 47

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