june 18, 2017 | 1:41am, 7m |
preparing my audition for music school nearly two decades ago, i noticed that the requirement for “classical sonata” invited beethoven, but with the exception of the op. 14 and op. 49 sonatas; each opus has a set of two sonatas. (as i write this i wonder if they also forbid the two-movement sonata op. 54?) these smaller sonatas apparently fail to demonstrate an aspiring pianist’s technical or interpretational skill or potential.
at the time, i didn’t really think I much of it, cramming the op.31 no. 2 tempest" sonata, really by chance; my teacher had given me the first movement at one point and i adopted it into my audition program once I decided to pursue music school.
later, though, as i read more and more music, i discovered op. 14 no. 1 and decided to play it on my first recital at IU. after all, the school only denied access to the piece in an audition, but not later in a recital. i had recently studied op. 7, beethoven’s fourth sonata after the three in op. 2, and the longest next to the late Hammerklavier, and Op. 14 no. 1 felt like a beautiful answer. unassuming, surprising, deceptively simple but full of shadows and technical traps. so indeed i played it in my first student recital, sophomore year, alongside other unusual works: the Mozart fantasy and fugue in C Major, the brahms variations on a theme of schumann (which I’d still like to play again), and the ginastera doce preludios americanos.
i did, without a doubt, enjoy presenting a forbidden sonata in a concert setting. and went on to ruffle my teacher’s feathers with future challenges to show-off culture—like the time i programmed the complete liszt consolations.
now again i find myself preparing a blacklisted sonata, op. 49, no. 1, and again i find it beguilingly tricky to play and to understand. once more, but also, ago i delight in practicing this forbidden thing, this ‘easy’ thing
(falling asleep at the kitchen table, and thinking crazy thoughts. sort of dreaming….)
