..... is a masterpiece that combines all essential elements of music creation. These include clear and concise organisation of thoughts, mastery of technique, and using all available artistic tools to serve creative inspiration - the intangible yet invaluable gift of genius. Here is a work of pure music for sound lovers who only want auditory pleasure: analysts of the scriptural treatment, amateurs of beautiful melodies and those who like to live on the wings of the dream. No personal lyricism tarnishes this pure music; if certain very human accents appear, they have a character of universality. Only a few preliminary sketches have been found, and all known of its gestation is that it was composed quickly; examining its musical substance confirms this supposition. The first part has sprung from a single pour; it betrays no sign of the thematic work so visible in most of the first movements of Beethoven's sonatas: it must have arisen from an improvisation. The second part, simple and almost bare, with its two superimposed themes in reversible counterpoint, develops in a rigorous scriptural logic. It is in total contrast to the first, musically and spiritually. The finale theme and variations present none of the conventional characteristics of this kind of composition; the theme is one of the most beautiful melodies from Beethoven's pen. The variations follow one another in contrast before the massive sound deployment of the last variation, the alternative pleasures of emotion, dreams, rhythmic impression, charm, and intellectual value.
Like all great artists, Beethoven, far from exploiting the means of creation, seeks a perpetual renewal of his art. There is no connection between the circumstances of Beethoven's life and the musical content of this sonata, as there are for the Sonatas Pathetique, Moonlight, Appassionata, and so many other pages through which the alterations of Beethoven's destiny are read. And yet this sonata was written amid domestic worries, sorrows, and the worries of failing health. As for op. 109, one could say that through his artistic creation, Beethoven escapes from the lamentable contingencies which form the fabric of his daily life; he does more than escape from them. He dominates them with a prodigious interior journey; because of the musical inspiration, the lucid elaboration, and the discoveries of the writing, this pure music, finally realised, is born from the perception of transcendent realities in the light, which floods the mind in its contemplation. Beyond the ordinance of thought, technical certainty and rugged beauty, beyond music, but through it, and without having to explain it to oneself, we receive the echo of a higher and secret truth. The word itself is a misnomer; we are at this point where art makes us touch the truth by its means, the symbolic expression of the world. The Sonatas Op. 106, 109,110 and 111 are Urmusik accordingly Ferruccio Busoni, that is to say, "the root of what is".
In truth, the Sonata op.109 is an initiation poem. As Bettina reported, one only needs to refer to Beethoven's words to be convinced of this.
Musical lexicon.
The key of E major indicates the luminous atmosphere in which the sonata is conceived. The central Prestissimo is in E minor, thereby expressing the absolute contrast of this part with the first. The third, in its variations, evokes the two preceding characters; the last variation reveals the sonata's whole secret meaning. In short, the three parts obey the dialectical formula: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
Let's tune in to these musical enigmas and listen to Elizabeth Leonskaya
so real and so beautifully written