Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major

Beethoven’s groundbreaking piano music was partly inspired by but also stimulated fast-evolving methods of keyboard manufacture. This reciprocal relationship between composer and designer reached new creative heights in the “Waldstein” Sonata (No. 21) of 1803-04, composed on Beethoven’s new Erard piano, which boasted sustaining pedals rather than knee levers, an upwardly expanded keyboard and significantly enhanced tonal projection. In response, Beethoven composed what was effectively a symphony for piano, dedicated in appreciation to Count Ferdinand von Waldstein (1762-1823), one of his most devoted patrons and supporters. If the Appassionata, completed the following year, tends toward impassioned fortissimo outbursts, the Waldstein (the first of his sonatas with pedalling indications) is notable for its veiled pianissimo sonorities and textural innovation, highlighted by the finale’s rippling glissando octaves and theme-enveloping trills. The Sonata immediately reverses convention by opening with an idea whose presentation—reiterated chords, then oscillating tremolandos—is more immediately striking than the theme itself. The second subject reverses the procedure by focusing on its melodic allure. Beethoven originally planned a separate, extended slow movement (the popular Andante favori), but replaced it with a short “Introduzione”, consequently throwing the expressive weight onto the jubilant finale, in which he experimentally blurs distinctions between major and minor modes and even changes of chord by pedalling through them.