The Tempest Sonata is one of those crazy feats of compositional genius whose sheer craft is undetectable because it’s so emotionally compelling from the very first listen. But there is no harm in briefly listing what makes it so extraordinary, I suppose.
In the 1st movement nearly everything is built up from the first line of music – the motifs of a arpeggio, scale, and turn. It’s kind of impossible to unhear once you know they’re there, and it’s a level of motivic integration that represents the perfection of the technique Haydn developed. There’s also the incredibly dramatic use of long (developed) recitative-like passages as contrast to passages of searing intensity, and the introduction of wonderfully dark new material in the recapitulation. The 2nd movement is unreasonably beautiful, and the famous 3rd features some of the most gorgeous modulations ever put to paper. Note also how the dramatic movement happens not in the (almost unchanging) figuration, but in the harmony, where turbulence and restlessness is often followed by *very* long periods of total harmonic stasis [e.g., 23:21], usually as a dominant preparation.
MVT I
EXPOSITION
00:00 – Theme Group 1, Motif A (Rising Arpeggio)
00:14 – TG1, Motif B (Scalar Passage, with notes in groups of 2)
00:18 – TG1, Motif C (Turn)
00:24 – Counterstatement of TG 1, entering in a surprise E6, the dominant of III
00:37 – Motif B
00:48 – Transition (or an extension of TG 1): Motif A rising in bass, answered by Motif C in RH. Surprisingly substantial.
01:06 – Theme Group 2, Theme 1 (= Motif B!, with Motif C in the LH.) A minor.
01:18 – TG2, Theme 2 (= Motif C, with lengthened 2nd note)
01:26 – TG2, Theme 2, with Motif C now in the deep bass
01:31 – TG2, Theme 3 (Cadential Theme)
DEVELOPMENT
03:51 – Motif A, repeated thrice, arriving in F#
04:37 – Transition Theme (Motif A + C), sequentially deployed, rising constantly
04:58 – 22(!) bars of dominant preparation, totally devoid of any thematic allusion. Short recitative (with a little Neapolitan Eb) leads into
RECAPITULATION
05:19 – TG1, with 4 bars of recitative attached to each statement of the largo. This section hangs on a Ab, which is transformed
06:43 – into a G# (in enharmonic implied Gb minor!) in a darkly guttural 4 chords. This ushers in a extraordinary modulating section.
06:55 – TG2, in tonic.
07:36 – CODA
MVT II
EXPOSITION
07:59 – Theme 1. (Motif A = rising double-dotted 3-note figure)
09:38 – Transition, with stately rising theme. (Motif B = drumroll in bass)
10:55 – Theme 2. At 11:42 Motif B enters, building into dominant minor 9th chord
RECAPITULATION
12:08 – Theme 1, with Motif A immediately used as inner voice. At 13:00 a demisemiquaver accompaniment drifts down the keyboard
13:42 – Transition
14:54 – Theme 2
CODA
15:42 – Motif B, again building into a dominant minor 9th
16:26 – Motif A, rounded-off, in LH then RH
16:45 – Recalling Theme 1
17:19 – A new, 2-bar long 3rd theme enters and is repeated in the middle voice, before the movement ends.
MVT III
EXPOSITION
18:06 – Theme Group 1, Theme 1. A single motif (Motif A) repeated 16 times in RH. Note codetta with chromatic descending line
18:29 – Transition. Theme 1 in bass, interspersed with arpeggiated figure
18:38 – Theme Group 2, Theme 1, entering with insistent hemiola and 6 bars of dominant harmony
18:55 – TG2, Theme 2
19:05 – TG2, Theme 3 (Cadential Theme)
DEVELOPMENT
20:26 – Motif A in dim7 of iv, modulating into A min
20:37 – The bass uses Motif A to climb up a dim7 in D min, then shifts to D min harmony, then shifts into C min by flattening the A and introducing the inversion of Motif A in the RH. Then movement into the dim7 of Bb min
20:54 – Dramatic entrance of inverted A motif in RH, while LH climbs up bass chromatically.
21:06 – TG1 Theme 1, in Bb min
21:12 – Chromatic rising, landing on a dominant 7, suddenly revealed
21:19 – to be a augmented 6th when it resolves into the dominant of D min
21:23 – Dominant preparation begins, oscillating between G min and D min
21:41 – 16 bars of continuous descent to the home dominant
RECAPITULATION
21:53 – TG1, Theme 1. The bII in bar 18 becomes the subdominant of Bb, introduction a surprisingly lyrical passage.
22:14 – Transition. Tonal movement around circle of 5ths. G min harmony becomes augmented 6th chord, leading back into
22:34 – D min, TG2. Note how at 23:00 (Theme 3) Beethoven omits the expected high G, since his piano didn’t have the note, and substitutes a really nice repetition of the high D instead.
CODA
23:12 – Mimicking the beginning of the development, without forte outbursts
23:21 – for 16 bars(!) we dwell on the dominant, leading to
23:33 – a violent restatement of TG1 Theme 1, with an A pedal in the highest registers
23:54 – The original codetta from Theme 1 is now presented in full. With another familiar tonic-dominant swing the sonata ends.
