# Why does Beethoven's Op 111 only have two movements?



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

There we are, all set up to expect a third, and what we get is silence. The Void. And not even 4'33" of it.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Schindler asked that question, and Beethoven replied, "I didn't have time to write a third movement." As good an explanation as any!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

KenOC said:


> Schindler asked that question, and Beethoven replied, "I didn't have time to write a third movement." As good an explanation as any!


Schindler being Schindler, it was probably Schindler's explanation. A 3rd movement would be... not just superfluous, but spiritually constipating.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

He was just being a slacker. Bumthoven should have worked like the other people.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

My guess is that, like with Berg's Opus 1, he found that he had said all he needed to say.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

In a moment of truly Schubertian insight, Beethoven thought, "Well, I'm not going to beat _that _with anything, so I guess I'll just stop here and pretend I planned it that way."


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

There is some doubt that Beethoven's response to Schindler's question was serious. Op. 111 was one of Beethoven's final piano compositions (circa 1822). Beethoven wasn't well in these years and my guess is that he never had the capacity to return to the Op. 111 assuming he had planned to. I'm glad he didn't. Anything following the Arietta would have been an anticlimax.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I suspect Beethoven could have written another movement if he had wanted to. After all, his next pianistic exercise was to wrap up his Diabelli Variations in grand style! They were already well begun...


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I seriously doubt that op. 111 was meant to have 3 movements and Beethoven just didn't get around to it, it's too perfect as is. It's not unprecedented either as his earlier piano sonata op. 90 has the exact same fast furious first movement - slow lyrical second movement structure. He had also experimented with two movement piano sonatas in op. 78 and op. 54. I don't know why one would feel the need to single out op. 111, it's not particularly unusual in that regard. 

The op. 49 sonatas also have two movement each, but those are more like sonatinas anyway.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Why not? 

Innovative composers are supposed to throw some curve balls. 

The idea apparently had some use for others as well, the Op. 111 being the model for Prokofiev's two movement Symphony No. 2.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Mozart and Haydn used to sometimes end their symphonies and sonatas with minuets. Now there was a *seriously* bad idea!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Because after the Arietta, there's nothing he (or anyone else) can say.

As Andrew Rangell wrote in a liner note, the final restatement of the theme ends with "a silence unlike any ever heard before."

Or, as Wendell Kretchmar lectured in Mann's "Doctor Faustus," those trills represent Beethoven's farewell to the piano sonata.

I can sympathize -- it took me years to "get it" (the music), but Beethoven knew exactly what he was doing.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Beethoven was not above playing fast and loose with the order of movements in his piano sonatas, witness #14.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The real surprising thing is not that it ends with the variations, but that there's no middle movement. I'm not sure why he felt the need for a prestissimo in op 109 but not in op 111, in other respects the two sonatas seem close.

Has anyone explored the Beethoven notebooks books around op 111?



MarkW said:


> As Andrew Rangell wrote in a liner note, the final restatement of the theme ends with "a silence unlike any ever heard before."


As if 111 is in some way radically different from 109. I'm not sure it is - I haven't read what Andrew Rangell said, maybe it was just a throw away journalistic comment.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

tdc said:


> Why not?
> 
> Innovative composers are supposed to throw some curve balls.
> 
> The idea apparently had some use for others as well, the Op. 111 being the model for Prokofiev's two movement Symphony No. 2.


I second this .


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> I can sympathize -- it took me years to "get it" (the music), but Beethoven knew exactly what he was doing.


What's that promethian first movement doing in there?


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## Guest (Jul 16, 2016)

What could possibly follow those sublime last bars--some perky rondo or something? It's perfect as it is.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kontrapunctus said:


> What could possibly follow those sublime last bars--some perky rondo or something? It's perfect as it is.


Obviously, the piece needs an upbeat scherzo and then a really vigorous finale, something positive in outlook and energetic, with a big wrap-up. Send 'em home happy!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Obviously, the piece needs an upbeat scherzo and then a really vigorous finale, something positive in outlook and energetic, with a big wrap-up. Send 'em home happy!


Like what he does in the final diabelli variation you mean?


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Ukko said:


> Schindler being Schindler, it was probably Schindler's explanation. A 3rd movement would be... not just superfluous, but spiritually constipating.


Yes, but think of the possibilities. If adding a 3rd movement is constipating, he could have added a 4th movement and it we would have had the "Metamucil" Sonata


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Personally, I like the idea of shortened or one-movement works. Robert Schumann started getting into this. I like symphonic poems for this reason. I don't need no stinkin' minuets.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> As if 111 is in some way radically different from 109. I'm not sure it is - I haven't read what Andrew Rangell said, maybe it was just a throw away journalistic comment.


Hi Mandryka --

First, Rangell is an American pianist of uncommon seriousness -- who has been playing late Beethoven from an age when most pianists won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. He wrote his own notes for his CDs of the last 5 sonatas -- which have plusses and minuses, but his Op. 111, once it gets past the "boogie woogie" variation, attains a very rarefied altitude which I have heard few others achieve.

I personally think Opus 109 and Op 111 speak to quite different things. I have loved the former from almost the first time I heard it. The latter took years, and aims for nothing less than the ineffable. These, of course, are personal opinions.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

MarkW said:


> Hi Mandryka --
> 
> First, Rangell is an American pianist of uncommon seriousness -- who has been playing late Beethoven from an age when most pianists won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. He wrote his own notes for his CDs of the last 5 sonatas -- which have plusses and minuses, but his Op. 111, once it gets past the "boogie woogie" variation, attains a very rarefied altitude which I have heard few others achieve...


I've always been bothered by the 'boogie woogie' analogy. An almost off-the-cuff remark suggesting it led to some kind of broad acceptance and now you often see it it mentioned in Op 111 program notes. I understand the musical construct that resulted in it being suggested, but, to my ears, given what precedes and what follows that variation, not to mention the profound solemnity of the Arietta, there is nothing that suggests 'boogie woogie'.


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## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

It is not the first time the composer applied a two-movement minor-major (parallel keys) design on a piano sonata. It gives a sense of innovation, contrast and unity. No additional movements are needed.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bruckner Anton said:


> It is not the first time the composer applied a two-movement minor-major (parallel keys) design on a piano sonata. It gives a sense of innovation, contrast and unity. No additional movements are needed.


Alas not everyone thinks the same.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Cornelis de Bondt's piano variations on op 111 makes a good finale, it's called Grand Hotel. Lukas called American style capitalism a grand hotel falling into the abyss, and Bondt does for Beethoven's tonality what Lukas did for consumerist society. It used to be on youtube. 

I'm very much in favour of modernising war horses like op 111. Grand Hotel is one way. Another way, paradoxically, is to take it off a concert grand. The way Lubimov plays it, on a Graff, seems to take it by the neck and fling it into the 21st century.

A third way is to refuse all spiritual hocus pocus -- what could be more modern than that? A good example is Maria Grinberg's Communist (materialist) interpretation.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Are you similarly in favor of drawing a goatee on the Mona Lisa?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MarkW said:


> Are you similarly in favor of drawing a goatee on the Mona Lisa?


Like this post .:tiphat:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The idea that it doesn't need additional movements must come from the thought that the binary structure works. 

Anyway, if it's satisfying as a two movement work, why? Are there symmetries, reflections, between the two movements? Do the two movements complement each other in some way? 

The first movement does seem particularly bold harmonically. I just listened to Lubimov play it and was struck by how dissonant it sounded. Is this the most dissonant classical keyboard movement? I mean, is Beethoven really pushing harmonic practice to the limit in it? 

And the second movement is such a contrast because it's not turbulent! At least it's not turbulent if there's a more or less constant tempo for the aria and the initial variations (I can't help think that Schnabel's approach did a lot of damage here.) But if the first movement is pushing harmonic ideas, what's the second movement doing? 

Most of the discussion here has just said that the variations movement has a satisfying ending, but that's irrelevant, as the missing movement may be a central one.

(Re Mona Lisa - I've never seen it for real! Nor have I seen Marcel Duchamp's picture!)


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

That is a very special piece.

But there's actually nothing too out of the ordinary about a two-movement sonata. Weren't all of Mozart's violin sonatas two movements?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Beethoven clearly thought it was complete as is. If you have a better idea, and can compose as well (or nearly as well) as Beethoven, go to it. And we can compare and vote.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

MarkW said:


> Beethoven clearly thought it was complete as is. If you have a better idea, and can compose as well (or nearly as well) as Beethoven, go to it. And we can compare and vote.


If only one could, criticising from the sideline is much easier .


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The question really is why two movements are sufficient. I know Beethoven thought so, I'm interested in why.

Let's take another related question. Imagine he had cut out the prestissimo from Op 109. Would that two movement sonata now be as satisfying, more or less satisfying than what he left us with? And why? 

I believe these questions are valid, at least if you think of listening to music as partly involving making sense of it, understanding it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

By this stage in n his composing career Beethoven undoubtably knew what he was doing and if Op 111 is good enough for him, why not us? After all, why should a sonata not have two movements? Sonatas by Berg and Liszt are in only one movement!


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Personally, I find that most of the Beethoven 'slow movements' work as standalone works so I don't really care what comes before or after. Actually, there is precedent for that such as the #14 and #8.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Schindler's testimony is worthless; he has been proven over and over again to be a liar, fabricating entries in the Conversation Books and making things up either to make himself look better or more within Beethoven's confidence--for much of their working relationship Beethoven barely tolerated him as a useful henchman.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DavidA said:


> By this stage in n his composing career Beethoven undoubtably knew what he was doing and if Op 111 is good enough for him, why not us? After all, why should a sonata not have two movements? Sonatas by Berg and Liszt are in only one movement!


It's not a question of being good enough, it's a question of understanding what he was up to. And that must mean that the binary structure fulfils his objective. The point of my thread is to better understand his objective.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

DaveM said:


> Personally, I find that most of the Beethoven 'slow movements' work as standalone works so I don't really care what comes before or after. Actually, there is precedent for that such as the #14 and #8.


Yep, well the clearly don't work stand alone for Luddy van B because otherwise he wouldn't have written all that stuff which surrounds them!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Well, I think the purpose of the scherzo in Op 109 is to provide contrast. The first and last movements are too much of a piece -- you could segue from the end of the last movement to the beginning of the first and the thing would go around in beautiful circles (like Finnegan's Wake). The first movement of Op 111 provides plenty of contrast -- no intermediary needed.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

MarkW said:


> The first movement of Op 111 provides plenty of contrast -- no intermediary needed.


That transition from the first movement to the arietta can be really interesting.

I'd like to explore the idea that he was taking the piano sonata idea to a sort of limit in op 111, and that both movements are pushing the sonata to the edge.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> That transition from the first movement to the arietta can be really interesting.
> 
> I'd like to explore the idea that he was taking the piano sonata idea to a sort of limit in op 111, and that both movements are pushing the sonata to the edge.


Well, I pretty much agree with that hypothesis -- but I'm not sure I have anything intelligent to say about it.


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