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Beethoven Appassionata: A Torrent of Expressive Emotion

Mvt 1 : 00:00
Mvt 2 : 10:35
Mvt 3 : 16:41

Beethoven is one of the most renowned composers to have ever lived and within his sheer volume of work, a handful of pieces serve to at least partially define the depths of this composer. One example is certainly the famous Beethoven Appassionata. Full of sound and raw emotional fury, I vacillate between the sublime and the carnal; as if the composer himself is speaking to me through the tones of the keys and the ominous dynamics featured throughout. While I experience a sensation of majesty within the undertones, there is undoubtedly a sense of anger throughout the piece and this serves to highlight how Beethoven himself was interpreting this portion of his life.

In order to fully appreciate the Beethoven Appassionata, I found that it was first necessary to delve into the emotional bowels of the composer himself. Beethoven was a man of extremes. Known for fits of rage and a proclivity to fall passionately in love, these very same characteristics were perhaps best suited to be translated into a musical score. However, I believe that it is most important to recognise that this piece was written when he had learned of the severity of his deteriorating hearing loss. As a pianist, I can only imagine what he must have been feeling after such an utter condemnation. Akin to a painter who loses his sight, this is arguably the cruellest curse for a composer; the inability to experience his own creations.

While all three of his movements vary in terms of tempo and melody, I quickly learned that there are a handful of themes which can be seen throughout the piece as a while. As contemporary Austrian pianist Carl Czerny pointed out, it seems as if the Beethoven Appassionata represented “ocean waves on a stormy night”. This could very well be an allusion to the sense of loneliness that Beethoven must have felt when he first learned about his irreversible hearing condition. Indeed, I can hear angered and yet silent cries within many of the notes that he chose to use.