Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 111 (Played by Artur Schnabel)
The two movements that make up Beethoven's final torso, represent two different views of life. The first, from Beethoven's signature, stormy C minor mode, sees life from the midst of the struggle, where one never has enough time; one is so eager to finish that nothing ever gets done, and fate snatches the coveted prize again and again before us, no matter how fast we run toward it. The crude, ungracious three-note motif blunders through a series of disasters, comic and tragic at the same time, before time literally runs through our fingers in the coda. All that speed and aggression has been for nothing. "This is it? Not more?"
Yet the second subject of the first movement already offers a brief glimpse of calm, and in the midst of rage and bewilderment, hints at another way of looking at things beyond happiness and tragedy, success and failure. In the silence between the two movements, all bewildering desires are extinguished. The second movement begins in the coldness of outer space. Yet out of this cold distance a warmth emerges, a delight in the world of appearances divorced from personal fate. Life from now appears from this distance in its entirety, as an effortless, circular dance of light, which grows more dazzling and complex as we approach it, before vanishing on contact.
The long second movement begins as a set of variations, each twice as fast as the previous one. The first variation is still, the second a sentimental stroll, the third a gentle canter and the fourth a frenetic dance. The increasing richness and energy culminates in the fifth variation - where the sheer speed of molecular vibrations is shown as the same as stillness. Matter itself is revealed as a pure shimmering. The method is brutally simple, like the investigations of Buddhist sutras - a rigorous logic that leads us beyond logic, to the inseparability of form and emptiness. As in certain trance practices, where the increasing tension of focus finally releases one into a state of deep relaxation, Beethoven now discards the variation form altogether, and the rest of the movement is a free-form fantasia, which takes us to the outermost reaches of space before depositing us back on earth, with a new appreciation for our place.
Yet the second subject of the first movement already offers a brief glimpse of calm, and in the midst of rage and bewilderment, hints at another way of looking at things beyond happiness and tragedy, success and failure. In the silence between the two movements, all bewildering desires are extinguished. The second movement begins in the coldness of outer space. Yet out of this cold distance a warmth emerges, a delight in the world of appearances divorced from personal fate. Life from now appears from this distance in its entirety, as an effortless, circular dance of light, which grows more dazzling and complex as we approach it, before vanishing on contact.
The long second movement begins as a set of variations, each twice as fast as the previous one. The first variation is still, the second a sentimental stroll, the third a gentle canter and the fourth a frenetic dance. The increasing richness and energy culminates in the fifth variation - where the sheer speed of molecular vibrations is shown as the same as stillness. Matter itself is revealed as a pure shimmering. The method is brutally simple, like the investigations of Buddhist sutras - a rigorous logic that leads us beyond logic, to the inseparability of form and emptiness. As in certain trance practices, where the increasing tension of focus finally releases one into a state of deep relaxation, Beethoven now discards the variation form altogether, and the rest of the movement is a free-form fantasia, which takes us to the outermost reaches of space before depositing us back on earth, with a new appreciation for our place.
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