These are the opening lines to what I consider the single most beautiful piece of music ever written. It is the second movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in C minor, opus 13 #8, better known as the Pathetique Sonata. It was written in 1798 when Beethoven was still a relatively young man, age 27. Like all of Beethoven’s Sonatas, this one in all three movements express a wide yet powerful range of emotions. One of Beethoven’s most enduring quotes is “ to play a wrong note is unavoidable, to play without passion is inexcusable”. Everything in Beethoven’s life and music was about passion.
Beethoven’s life, as I have written before, was full of musical success and personal failures. Musically, he composed 9 symphonies, 5 concertos, 32 sonatas among many other works of music. Even though he was born in Bonn, Germany where he spent his youth, the bulk of his life was spent in Vienna, the musical capital of the world at that time. On the other hand, his personal life was full of problems and missteps. For one thing, he kept falling in love with women who were unattainable. Some he was prevented from marrying because Beethoven was a commoner and the women he loved were nobility and the laws of the day prevented marriage under such circumstances. Some women he fell in love with were already married and as such an approved marriage was impossible. But his passion for women is reflected in all his music.
In addition, Beethoven was slowly becoming deaf throughout most of his life. It started when he was composing the Pathetique Sonata featured here and it became steadily worse as he lived to the point in his mid 50’s he was totally and completely deaf and seeking solace at the bottom of a bottle of booze. Frankly, if one studies Beethoven’s music you will find a lot of anger in many of his sonatas but this sonata written when 27 still shows the hope and tenderness of positive expectations.
The pianist who will showcase this work of Beethoven is Daniel Barenboim, whom I consider the world’s foremost interpreter of Beethoven and a hero for myself. Barenboim is Jewish and a citizen of Israel but has been very active in playing concerts in Israel, Palestine, Arab countries while using both Jewish, Palestinian and Arab musicians to promote civil rights and peaceful understandings between people in conflict. Conservative factions in the Likud party have tried to get Barenboim declared persona nom grata in Israel and revoke his citizenship without success, so far. Barenboim is one of the few pianists who have succeeded in memorizing all 32 of Beethoven’s sonatas, any of which he can play at a moments notice. This is the dream of many young idealistic pianists, including yours truly, but find it impossible to hold all 900,000+ notes in memory.