The Beethoven Violin Sonatas: History, Criticism, Performance (review)

This book is based on a group of seven papers first presented at the Boston University International Beethoven Festival–Conference in October 2000, and most of the contributors are well known in the field of Beethoven scholarship. Unlike so many such symposia and books of essays, which tend to consist of a rather disparate collection of highly specialized studies within a larger subject area, this one has an impressively comprehensive coverage of a limited and well-focused subject. Each of Beethoven's ten violin sonatas is given some detailed attention (only the A minor Sonata, Op. 23, is somewhat under-represented, being allocated little more than a single paragraph). On the other hand the authors manage to avoid becoming bogged down in minutiae, and offer papers with plenty of interest for readers who are seeking a general overview of the violin sonatas.

Another welcome feature is that there is little overlap of subject matter between the papers. The sonatas are discussed in separate studies in chronological order from the three in Op. 12 to Beethoven's last violin sonata, Op. 96, followed by a final paper on performance practice in all of them, and so the papers fit together almost like chapters of a book. It is significant in this respect that the articles are not just given titles but are also numbered from 1 to 7, as if forming consecutive parts of a coherent whole. Thus the book is not only 'the first scholarly book in English devoted exclusively to the Beethoven sonatas and deals with them in unprecedented depth', as claimed on the inside flap; it is also not too specialized to serve as an introduction to the whole subject. To complete the picture of Beethoven's music composed for violin and piano, the first paper, by Sieghard Brandenburg, begins with a brief account of three earlier works for this combination—the fragmentary Sonata in A, Hess 46; the Rondo in G, WoO 41, of 1792; and the variations on Mozart's 'Se vuol ballare', WoO 40, completed in 1793. There is no mention of the Six German Dances for violin and piano, WoO 42, but these are very short and insignificant, and do not exploit the medium in any meaningful way.

After discussing the three early works, Brandenburg offers a broad overview of the three sonatas in Op. 12, concentrating mainly on the forms of the movements. Most of his observations on these are sound and perceptive, and he concludes that the relatively conventional and 'workmanlike' forms and styles 'can be understood as a sign of immaturity' (p. 16). This is true of some aspects of these sonatas, but Beethoven had already used much more unconventional structures in certain earlier works such as the cello sonatas Op. 5, and some of his earlier piano sonatas are arguably more original; hence it cannot simply be immaturity that led to their features being conventional. Brandenburg then moves on to the rather few sketches for Op. 12, and concludes with an account of its early reception, where he stresses that the notoriously hostile review in 1799 of the original Artaria edition should be seen in the light of the fact that the sonatas were eagerly taken up and reissued by no fewer than eight other publishers within the next ten years—a factor generally overlooked.

The next two sonatas, Opp. 23 and 24, were originally published as a pair but were later given separate opus numbers. It is the second one, the 'Spring' Sonata, that grasps Lewis Lockwood's attention, and he provides a useful general account of its origins, with some pertinent comments about melodic refinements made during the sketching process. He then makes a more speculative suggestion that Beethoven set out to compose some explicitly lyrical and 'beautiful' works such as this sonata in response to critical reviews claiming that his music was bizarre, ungracious, and opaque. This could have been one...