Slide 1

1st mvtSonata
No.8,
“Pathétique”
Beethoven, 1799

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Slide 2

1st Viennese School

Haydn – 1732 - 1809
Mozart – 1756 - 1791
Beethoven – 1770 – 1827

Schubert – (1797 – 1828) is sometimes

added to the school

Gluck (1714 – 1787) and Salieri (1750 -

1825) also worked in Vienna but are not
considered part of the school.
2

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Slide 3

Ludwig Van Beethoven

• A lot of his music is about fight and
struggle.
• Perhaps a commentary on his own
life
• When listening to it you are struck by
three things:
• the energy of his rhythmic motifs
• the multiple accents
• the feisty dynamic contrasts.
• The opening of his ‘Eroica’
Symphony shows this
3

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Slide 4

“Die grosse Mogul” – Mozart

“Beethoven banged the hell out

of a piano’ – Schoenberg

“A rogue. Brilliant in the

extreme, but not very delicate” -
Czerny

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Slide 5

Beethoven’s piano music shows how he

was continually longing for a better
instrument, with greater reach and more
depth of colour.

The Pathétique would probably have been

written on a Streicher piano that had a
small frame and light touch

Later he moved to Graf and Broadwood

pianos that had a wider octave range and
better sound.

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Slide 6

Who would win a musical fight

between Mozart and Beethoven?

Compare Mozart’s First Piano Sonata

to Beethoven’s Appassionata

• visionary and revolutionary

• Early Romantic
• A risk taker
• Stirrer of imaginations
• surprising

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Slide 7

Three periods of writing

Dates Features Examples

Piano concertos 1 and 2

Influenced by Hayden and Mozart, classical
Piano sonatas 1-14
restraints are respected, conventional
1770-1802 Early Septet for win
instrumentation and structure. Entirely what
Symphonies 1 and 2
would be expected from 1st Viennese School
String quartets, Op18

Symphonies 3-8
The beginning of a “new path”. Epic, ground-
Appassionatoa and
1802-1812 Middle breaking ideas, more emotion and surprising
Waldstein Piano sonatas
expression
Coriolan Overture

Hammerklavier Piano Sonata

Diabelli Variations
1813-1827 Late Visionary, “before it’s time”
Symphony No 9
String Quartets Op 127-135
7

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Slide 8

Pathetique – fighting talk

The title is about “Pathos” and is anything but pathetic
Pathos is ‘when the unblinkered awareness of suffering
is counter-balanced by the capacity to overcome it’.
In other words, the Pathétique is not about giving in to
life’s woes, but it’s the struggle to rise above them.

This first movement is about a fight.

Compare this with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 - in the

final movement, the strings cry out underneath the
crushing hand of fate. It’s music to weep to. But where
Tchaikovsky wallows, Beethoven fights back. ‘Pathos’ for
Beethoven is a spur to embrace life, not reject it
8

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Slide 9

Anything Major about C Minor?

The key is in C Minor – and not by accident. There is a
tradition of writing “tragic” music in C minor:
Slow movement of the Eroica Symphony is a funeral
march in C Minor – relentless and agitated.
• Piano Concerto, No. 24, K491, Mozart
• Don Giovanni (echoes in the Pathétique), Mozart
• Partita for keyboard in C minor, Bach
• Fantasia in C minor, K475, Mozart
• ‘Electoral’ Sonata No. 2 in F minor, Beethoven

C D Eb F B A Bb C 9

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Slide 10

Sonata Form
Started out as Ternary Form (ABA)

10

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Slide 11

Sonata Form
Started out as Ternary Form (ABA)

11

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