The Sonata for piano n° 29 in major B flat , opus 106, of Ludwig van Beethoven, made up between 1817 and 1819 and was published in September 1819. The dedication went to the Rodolphe archduke. Entitled “Große Sonata für das Hammerklavier” (great sonata for the Pianoforte), it was intended as already the opus 101 for the most modern instruments of the time whose it exploited all the technical possibilities.

The title Hammerklavier comes from the German term for “Piano-forte”, given by the musician who wanted to thus recall to his contemporaries who the pianoforte was a German invention, as it wrote it with Tobias Haslinger in 1817. The term “Hammerklavier” (literally: keyboard with hammers ) - which marks a clear distinction between the struck cords of the modern piano and the cords pinches of the Clavecin - also seems to underline the percussif character of the instrument, emphasized particularly by the “hammered” introduction of this Sonate.

Putting an end to four years of quasi an artistic sterility, its composition was contemporary among that of the Kyrie of the Missa Solemnis and of the very first drafts of the Ninth Symphony , at one time when the deafness of the musician had become total. The work was published on September 15th 1819. It is its vaster partition for piano Solo by its length and the width of its breath. The musician entrusted to his editor: “Here is a sonata which will give work to the Pianiste S, when one plays it in fifty years” .

It includes/understands four movements and its execution lasts approximately 45 minutes. The third movement, adagio sostenuto , is remarkable by its proportions (nearly twenty minutes), which makes the longest slow movement of it that Beethoven wrote. The pianist Wilhelm Kempff in said: It is the greatest monolog for piano which Beethoven ever wrote . The final one is immense a Fugue with three votes of a frightening complexity for the executants.

Giving an account of the vastness of this work, the Italian pianist Ferruccio Busoni declared that the life of a man is too unfortunately much short to learn Opus 106 .

1. Allegro , 2/2, major B flat, 405 measurements

2. Scherzo, assai long-lived , 3/4, major B flat, 175 measurements
3. Adagio sostenuto. Appassionato E idiot molto sentimento , 6/8, minor F sharp, 187 measurements
4. Largo , 4/4, major F, 10 measurements - Allegro risoluto , 3/4, if B major, 400

Partition

References