Modlin Center for the Arts - Midori - Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24, “Spring"

Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 5 in F Major, Op. 24, “Spring"

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

As a public performer, Beethoven’s true domain was the keyboard; he was the greatest pianist of his time, but as a practical musician of his generation, he knew the violin well and was able to write fluently and idiomatically for it. Posterity wishes he had written more for the instrument, because in addition to the ten sonatas, we have only the great Violin Concerto of 1806 and some smaller pieces. He composed the Sonatas Nos. 4 and 5 more or less simultaneously during 1800 and 1801 and dedicated them both to Count Moritz von Fries, to whom he also dedicated his Symphony No. 7.

Beethoven had intended to issue Sonatas Nos. 4 and 5 as a pair under a single opus number, but when the engraver made the mistake of preparing the printing plates for them in different formats, they had to be published separately, as Op. 23 and Op. 24. At some time in the course of its history, no one knows when, the sunny warmth of its melodies and the rustling figuration of its instrumental writing gave Sonata No. 5, the nickname Spring Sonata.

The Allegro first movement is an exceptional one in which the violin has the opportunity of leading off with the beautiful opening theme. The lengthy movement has a rich texture and is so elegantly harmonized that some of the beautiful bass lines for the pianist’s left hand sound as though they could be the cello part of a great trio. The thematic subjects are assembled from smaller melodic materials that then become stretched to great length, and we hear them being shared and repeated by violin and piano. They are clearly stated and later so freely recalled that Beethoven needs to give them only brief discussion and development. The second movement, Adagio molto espressivo, a tranquil and romantic song, has an ornamented main theme akin to that of the first. After a particularly brief Scherzo and trio with playful rhythms, Allegro molto, the finale, Allegro ma non troppo, an atypically lyrical and poetic movement, brings forth evocations of spring even more than the first movement does.