Piano Sonata No. 25 in G Major

This extremely concise three-movement work was composed in 1809. In comparison with other Sonatas written during this period, it makes far fewer technical demands on the performer. But, as always with Beethoven, this simplicity is deceptive, and one can only marvel at the consummate manner in which the composer unfolds his musical ideas. The opening movement, marked “Presto alla tedesca” (literally “very fast in the German style”), is an exceptionally lively country dance with a surprisingly long middle section dominated by two-note “cuckoo” calls which require the pianist to be extremely agile in negotiating some of the leaps in register. In the gently rocking “Andante”, Beethoven’s tender and melancholic writing could easily be mistaken for one of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words. The concluding “Vivace” returns to the playful mood of the opening movement, and contains some witty exploitation of the piano’s lower and higher registers.