Beethoven: Pathetique

The word ‘legend’ is used a lot but Ludwig van Beethoven really was one! He was born in Germany in 1770 into a musical family. After leaving school at 11 to concentrate on his music, he moved to Vienna in the hope of studying composition with the musical giants of the time—Haydn and Mozart.

He only met Mozart once and things didn’t work out with Haydn but despite this, Beethoven began to make a name for himself as a pianist, composer and improviser. He settled in Vienna and began composing for different patrons.

This was the beginning of Romanticism and Beethoven was at the forefront of this new direction, which emphasised expression, emotions and freedom of imagination. Beethoven considered himself something of a revolutionary, taking music in new directions and establishing himself as an inde-pendent composer; not tied to the palaces, estates or churches that previous composers were chained to. Beethoven became known as a Classic-Romantic composer as he spanned these two periods.

From 1796, Beethoven started to lose his hearing and by 1820 he was totally deaf. It is hard to believe that he composed some of his finest pieces of music when completely deaf! His compositions can be divided into three periods. The early works were Classical style, influenced by Haydn and Mozart. During his middle period, the pieces become more Romantic and heroic. At the end of his life, Beethoven wrote some of the most extraordinary music ever composed and unlike anything that had been heard before or since.

Beethoven wrote over 100 works (his last works being a group of amazing string quartets and his 9th symphony with it’s famous ‘Ode to Joy’) Amongst these are 32 piano sonatas, of which your set work is the 8th. It has been given the opus number 13, which means it was his 13th published work so clearly from his early period. He continued to compose piano sonatas throughout his life and these 32 pieces are some of the most important in all the works written over the centuries for the

piano.

The Pathetique was composed in 1798 when Beethoven was 28 and dedicated to one of his patrons, Prince Lichnowsky, who was a great financial supporter. The sonata was named Pathetique by his publishers, though apparently Beethoven liked it. The word Pathtique here means suffering, which was one of the main themes in Romantic music: the idea of the lonely artist against a hostile world!

Beethoven was clearly experiencing his own personal suffering as he was already having to come to terms with going deaf. Beethoven spanned two of the greatest musical periods—the Classical and the Romantic and in this sonata we can hear not only the influences of Mozart but the beginnings of a new Romantic musical world.