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Piano Sonata in A Major, Op.
101
Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101
Beethoven’s Last Pia no Sonatas
A n Edition w ith Elucidation, Volume 4
By Heinrich Schenker
Translated, Edited, and Annotated by John Rothgeb
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schenker, Heinrich, 1868–1935, author.
[Letzten fünf Sonaten von Beethoven. English]
Beethoven’s last piano sonatas : an edition with elucidation / by Heinrich Schenker ; translated, edited,
and annotated by John Rothgeb.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Translation of: Schenker, Heinrich. Die letzen fünf Sonaten von Beethoven: Kritische Ausgabe mit
Einführung und Erläuterung. Wien: Universal Edition, 1913–1921. 4 vols.
ISBN 978–0–19–991420–3 (volume 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–991422–7 (volume 2 : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978–0–19–991424–1 (volume 3 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–991426–5 (volume 4 : alk. paper)
1. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 30, op. 109, piano, E major. 2. Beethoven, Ludwig van,
1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 31, op. 110, piano, Aflat major. 3. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas,
no. 32, op. 111, piano, C minor. 4. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 28, op. 101, piano,
A major. I. Rothgeb, John, editor, translator. II. Title.
ML410.B42S27713 2015
786.2′183092—dc23
2015001173
Music engraving by Woytek Rynczak, W. R. Music Service
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Editor’s Preface vii
About the Companion Website xiii
Foreword 1
Preliminary Remarks 3
Commentary
First Movement 21
Second Movement 46
Third Movement 68
Fourth Movement 84
Editions consulted, and Facsimiles 143

Bibliogr aphy of Cited Wor ks by Heinr ich Schenk er 145
Bibliogr aphy of Cited Wor ks by Other Authors 147
Index 151
v
Editor’s Preface
With the four books in this set, the translation into English of Heinrich
Schenker’s major works is complete. Publication of the original German of the
works translated here occurred in the following order: Op. 109 (1913),1 Op. 110
(1914), Op. 111 (1915), Op. 101 (1921). A second German edition, abridged, edited,
and annotated by Oswald Jonas, was published in Vienna by Universal Edition
in 1970–1971.2 Jonas provided in his annotations many insights and supplements
regarding both source-appraisal and the music itself that are cited or quoted in the
present edition as space permits.
These commentary editions make available to English readers for the first
time some of Schenker’s best musical thinking. Among the features that may
have escaped the notice of many Anglophone musicians thus far, for example, is
Schenker’s fine sensitivity to the delicacies of Klaviersatz (piano writing or texture)
in the first movement of Op. 109, which fuels his withering critique of an earlier
editor’s “improvement” of Beethoven’s text. Another is Schenker’s revelation of the
spectacular link between the modulation and the second theme in the first move-
ment of Op. 111.
1
The Op. 109 edition was reprinted in 1922, with numerous corrections to the score. Schenker had marked a
copy of the first impression with hundreds of minor revisions to the text as well, but these were not incorpo-
rated into the reprint.
2
In addition to a large number of references to Schenker’s earlier publications, Jonas deleted most of Schenker’s
critiques of editions now long out of use as well as the Literature sections and the irrelevant political out-
bursts. The present edition is unabridged.
vii
viii Editor’s Preface
The unprecedented compression of sonata form in the first movement of Op. 101

has often been noted, but from Schenker’s commentary we learn with precision about
Beethoven’s radically new way of integrating the form’s constituent parts—especially
the second theme—into this optimally compact structure. Beethoven’s composing
of a far more expansive sonata-form piece in the last movement of Op. 101 shows yet
another innovation, again with respect to the second theme.
Schenker’s detailed suggestions as to tempo, dynamics, rubato, fingering, and
pedaling—in short, much that is requisite for a finely nuanced performance—round
out the discussion of each formal section. These features need no further editorial
introduction.
A few words may, however, be in order regarding the relation of these editions to
the rest of Schenker’s output. The books were preceded by Harmonielehre (1906)
and Kontrapunkt I (1910), both of them components of the grand plan Neue musi-
kalische Theorien und Phantasien3 devoted to an investigation of the tonal system
and its language as they could be observed in and inferred from the masterworks.
But these treatises had been intermixed with still other publications whose pur-
pose was exclusively the elucidation of works of art. These two thrusts—theory and
application—were cultivated simultaneously during the first and second decades of
the twentieth century.4
Harmonielehre had been concerned most importantly and originally with
Schenker’s wholly new vision of the Stufe, or scale degree, which at the time he
regarded as “far loftier and far more abstract than the conventional one. . . . The
scale-step [= scale degree] is a higher and more abstract unit” that “may even com-
prise several harmonies. . . .”5 This insight alone led Schenker to a far more sophis-
ticated understanding of some complex music than earlier harmonic theories could
have done, as witnessed by his interpretations of passages from Wagner’s Tristan
und Isolde (Harmony p. 149/193f., 151/195f.) and especially Var. XV of Beethoven’s
Diabelli Variations (Harmony p. 160f./206).6 Yet it would still be more than a
decade before Schenker would discern the primary instrument of the scale degree’s
concrete realization.
3
Harmonielehre, the first volume of the series, already bore this as its superior title. Authorship there was
attributed only to a Künstler (artist).
4
Indeed, works devoted to elucidation took the lead. The scrupulously edited and annotated sonatas (and one
rondo) from the Kenner und Liebhaber collection by C. P. E. Bach (1902) and Ein Beitrag zur Ornamentik
(1904) both belong to this category.
5
Harmony, §78. The formulation “may comprise several harmonies” suggests that Schenker’s vision of the
scale degree is not yet completely clear (see below).
6
Page-number citations are given first for English translations and then for German originals, the two sepa-
rated by a virgule, ‘/’.
Editor’s Preface ix
By 1913, the date of 109, Schenker had not progressed very far beyond the new
(but still incomplete) perception of the scale degree. His representation of harmony
in the sonata still relied on the Roman numeral—which was perfectly correct and
appropriate as far as it went—, but for the most part he still read more scale degrees
than he needed to.
A small and simple example will illustrate this. The Coda in the first movement
of Op. 109 begins in bar 65 (upbeat) with the triad of IV; Schenker read this and the
next three quarters as “IV—I—V—I.” Later, as he was revising the text for the 1922
reprint (see note 1), he crossed out the second Roman numeral. He did so in appre-
ciation of the meaning of the tones G ♯ and B of bar 66 as passing tones.
The year 1922 also saw the appearance, hard on the heels of the publication of
101, of the second book of Kontrapunkt, with its richly suggestive “Bridges to Free
Composition.” 7 As early as Harmonielehre Schenker had formulated this analogy
between free composition and strict counterpoint: “That which, in free composi-
tion, would correspond to the tones consonant with the cantus firmus is the scale
degree; the entities that would correspond to the passing dissonance, however, are
the intermediate chords being unfolded in free voice leading.”8 It may well have
been as Schenker was working years later on Kontrapunkt II and was contemplat-
ing the phenomena of the “Bridges” (the combined species) that the insight came
to him: the “free” voice leading of free composition was not, after all, so completely
free; it constituted instead an elaboration, by diminution, of formations regulated
by the principles set forth in the “Bridges”; moreover, in free composition, the single
dissonant passing tone of strict counterpoint was generalized to stepwise progres-
sions through the triadic spaces of scale degrees. Any such progression he would
henceforth designate by the term Zug (linear progression),9 and this policy would
take effect already in another work in progress, namely 101.
This concept, which becomes central to musical elucidation in the issues of Der
Tonwille and all subsequent works, makes its first appearance in the discussion of the
scherzo movement in 101. Schenker’s first observation about the tonal structure of
the movement is that “the voice leading in bars 1–4 is based on a fourth-progression
[Quartzug] F—C of the bass.” From that point on through the remainder of 101,
Schenker’s concentration on these progressions decisively influenced the text.
The precision of Schenker’s understanding of the tonal system and the nature of
composition had thus made a great leap forward between 1915 and 1921. The analytic
7
Counterpoint II, p. 175ff./169ff.
8
Harmony, p. 159/204, although rendered more freely there.
9
In 101 and his analysis of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Tonwille I), Schenker occasion-
ally used the term Knotenpunkt as interchangeable with Zug. As early as Counterpoint II, p. 58/59, however,
he defined the former term in an entirely different (and more useful) way.
x Editor’s Preface
yield in the period immediately following this breakthrough, however, was mixed.
Many years later, looking back on his oeuvre, Schenker found the following conces-
sion obligatory:
Since the task of revealing the world of the background in music fell to me,
I was not spared the difficulty of finding symbols for it. This required many
years. Furthermore, the engravers did not always demonstrate the necessary
degree of understanding. For these reasons the illustrations in Der Tonwille
and in the Jahrbücher do not always represent the definitive form.10
If this caveat applies to the two named serial publications, how much more must it
hold of the last of the commentary editions, which show its author struggling, as it
were, to “tame” his new discovery. Let the reader be advised, then, not to take the
voice-leading graphs offered in the second through fourth movements of Op. 101 (as
well as the accompanying commentary) as representing “the definitive form.” But
even though they may lack the precision Schenker was to achieve in his later works,
the graphic representations he provides will still prove useful in apprehending the
musical content.
A note on footnotes: in the rest of the book they are by Schenker, except for those
enclosed in square brackets, which are by this editor.
Work on this English edition has proceeded at a leisurely pace for roughly ten
years. Several colleagues have contributed in one way or another to completion of
the project. Dr. Hellmut Federhofer deserves hearty thanks for sound advice on not
only this but other projects as well. Hedi Siegel, my muse for translation and herself
a marvelous practitioner of the art, has my warmest thanks not only for her assis-
tance with bibliographic matters, but—more important—her unfailing support in
moments of editorial despair.
Dr. William Drabkin graciously and helpfully responded to a query from me
regarding manuscript materials, for which he has my thanks.
Irene Schreier Scott deserves heartfelt thanks for supplying a number of refer-
ences to The Art of Performance.
Professor Wayne Petty performed the invaluable service of photographing the 1913
and 1922 scores of Op. 109 in the Oster Collection in the New York Public Library of
the Performing Arts for me. He did this on his own initiative; his understanding of
what I would need in producing this English edition was better than my own.
Finally, my consultant in Germany, Heribert Esser, can scarcely be thanked
warmly enough for his generosity and expertise. His participation in the project
10
Free Composition, p. xxiiin/6n.
Editor’s Preface xi
lasted more than two years, during which time we exchanged hundreds of e-mail
messages as he corrected my renderings of treacherous passages in the Literature
sections. His patience and devotion to the task were truly inexhaustible.
John Rothgeb
Caulfield, Missouri
October 5, 2013
About the Companion Website
www.oup.com/us/beethovenslastpianosonatas
Oxford has created a website to accompany Beethoven’s Last Piano Sonatas, which
presents, for each of the four sonatas, Schenker’s critique of Literature concerning
the work from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
xiii
Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101
Foreword
Since the appearance of Op. 111 in the rubric “Edition with Elucidation,” five
years have passed. It is not difficult to guess why the publication of Op. 101 had to
suffer such a significant delay.
The publication now taking place falls in the most difficult time that not only
the German fatherland, but all of humanity as well has ever had to endure. Let this
world, brought into dismay by an incapable democracy of the West, now be suffused
by the ozone of a mental prince, an aristocrat, a genuine German genius—let a new
German youth, refreshed by this ozone, defy the ruinous onslaught of the West.
Let nobody hope for an approach to Beethoven who knows not what in the spe-
cific and narrowest sense is German, and what in the highest sense of the word is
genius, indeed German genius.
Heinrich Schenker
Vienna, August 30, 1920
1
Preliminary Remarks
The edition at hand is based primarily on the complete Autograph of the mas-
ter, which is in possession of Mr. Louis Koch in Frankfurt.1
I had access also to additional manuscript sources in the form of sketches for the
Development and Reprise of the last movement; they are taken from the sketch-
book of the year 1816, which is among the treasures of the Prussian National Library
in Berlin.2 Sketches for the first movement of our sonata appear not to be extant;
Nottebohm speculates that they may have been written on the seventeen pages
missing from the sketchbook of the years 1815 and 1816 discussed by him in Zweite
Beethoveniana, p. 323.
On pages 76 through 85 of this same sketchbook, sketches for the second move-
ment are found, which, thanks to more favorable circumstances, Nottebohm was
able to view and describe. But since it appeared to me appropriate for purposes of
my elucidation to make use of only those sketches which I myself had actually seen,
the ones consulted by Nottebohm are reserved for the Appendix [see Companion
Website].
The Archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna includes a copy
inscribed by Beethoven to Carl Czerny; except for the autograph personalization,
however, the item includes not a single further pen-stroke from the master’s hand,
and also none from Czerny’s.
After the autograph material, the Original Edition (Steiner) received primary
consideration.
1
[The Louis Koch collection is now in Wildegg, Switzerland.]
2
[Now the Deutsche Staatsbibliothek. The sketchbook is the one known as Artaria 201.]
3
4 Piano Sonata in A Major, Op. 101
That I have for critical purposes consulted, in addition to these basic

sources, other editions as well is part of the design of this series of editions, and
thus the present installment continues the practice that was initiated already
with 109.
In the Literature rubric, here a recent book by Riemann had to be addressed.
Entitled Analysen von Beethovens Klaviersonaten, it has been published in three vol-
umes (1818, 1919, 1919) by Hesse. For today’s students of music, it is truly a lamentable
pitfall to be pursued by a work of such nature, and therefore, to protect Beethoven
and those who study him, I must undertake to prove the Sirius-distant separa-
tion of a Riemann from Beethoven, which of course also renders his metric stud-
ies with respect to this master in the end completely baseless. (Why, on the other
hand, I eschew further discussion of Riemann’s Beethoven edition I have explained
in 110, p. 10ff.)
Concerning the relationship between autograph and original edition I have,
I believe, already provided adequate clarification in 110 (pp. 4–5); however, I find
myself obliged by recent discoveries in the work on Op. 101 to formulate more pre-
cisely and state more emphatically what was said there. One must in the first place
understand that actually this question is of importance only for the manuscripts
of greatest masters, but is of lesser importance, indeed of almost none, for manu-
scripts of average composers. Just because the latter are not gifted with the ability
to produce anything significantly new, their handwriting also finds no occasion
for new and special traits: reduced power of invention, incapacity for synthesis
are necessarily expressed also in a notational picture that is merely ordinary. If
the process of printing, whether out of habit of the engraver or other custom of
the era, here and there takes a path different from the composer’s own script, by
no means is any real harm thereby inflicted on his ideas; likewise, it is never of
real benefit for artistic understanding in the case of such composers to make a
point of investigating questions of whether the manuscript and original edition
correspond exactly, whether improvements have been subsequently entered and if
so which ones, etc.
All of this immediately changes as soon as we are concerned with the thought
process and handwriting of a Beethoven and of masters of his rank. True, even he
still changes so much at the last moment of the print—several examples of this can
be seen in the case of our sonata —, strikes out, drafts, and in short proceeds still
in the final version in such a way that one feels inclined in many places to com-
pare it to a sketch—still, his final writing contains a plethora of traits that are cer-
tainly included in what is ultimately intended, but that are not always done justice
by the original edition. Beethoven’s powerful, direct, one might say “tone-physical”
thinking presents him with a way of writing that is sensually convincing also to the
eye of the reader:
• the rise and fall of the lines: here we see them cross from the lower into the
upper system, there from the upper into the lower;
• the profound play of the beams: they show the eye what is happening “inside”
the tones—the will toward union in one case, the compulsion toward sepa-
ration in another;
• the mysterious eloquence of the slurs: uniting what breathes of association
even across beams and bar lines, separating in order to provide room for
counterweights, often simultaneously interacting in different spans too,
they convey the picture of cultivated and amply provisioned balance of
forces in the structure of the parts and the whole;
• the upward and downward stemming of the notes: they let us perceive the
tones almost as actors in a play, clearly drawn in collaborative and oppos-
ing roles, perhaps most beautiful in those cases where, for example, a down-
ward stemming so provocatively forecasts long in advance the contrast of
upward-stemmed tone successions (or vice versa);
• the specification of the rests: sometimes they are omitted, to show the eye
the complex of voices in a more transparent way and to underscore no more
than necessary the coming and going of certain voices;
and so many other things, for which I have already cited many examples in 109, 110,
[and] 111, and will offer many here as well.
Not all of these imponderables, however, have been reflected in the first printing,
and it can only be called coincidence if several have come to our attention, just as
one does nevertheless have every reason to be happy that any offenses of the original
edition are limited only to the features discussed here.
But couldn’t Beethoven have acted more forcefully to compel a more accurate
representation? Now, we know how much trouble he had with the exasperating
proofs, but we do not know what the first impressions looked like, how many of the
crudest errors still had to be eradicated from them; and who knows any more about
the circumstances of the later impressions? Did it never happen that he had to have
a first edition recalled? Who knows whether the master wasn’t finally obliged to
give in to the general indifference of the engravers and proofreaders, being unable
to provide reasons verbally and in writing for his notation, already concentrating
on new plans, and probably weary too of all time-stealing, endless endeavors—why
should the people of that era have had eyes more receptive to the marvel of his way
of writing than those of today?
How Beethoven tirelessly referred to the accuracy and reliability of his manu-
scripts, and placed them above even copies revised by him, may be attested by sev-
eral letter extracts that I cull from the abundance. He writes on March 28, 1809 to
Breitkopf and Härtel (see Beethovens sämtliche Briefe, p. 261):
Here you find the piano improvements in the symphonies—have them entered
into the plates immediately—. . . it is always best if you send me the proofs with
the score that you receive. . . .
To the same recipient, July 26, 1809 (Sämtliche Briefe, p. 283):
Here a goodly portion of the misprints (specifically in the cello sonata), to

which my attention was drawn—since I don’t trouble myself about things
that I have already written—by a good friend; I will have the listing written or
printed here and advertized in the newspaper so that all those who purchased
the work can get it—this again confirms my experience that engraving of my
pieces is most accurate from my own manuscript—you might presumably have
found several errors even in the copy that you have; but in looking it over the
author actually overlooks the errors —
And again, “second winter month of 1809” (Sämtliche Briefe, p. 294):
. . . And so I received your packet without a letter and didn’t look further at
it—only a few days ago I took it up, and I have to complain adamantly to
you: why the beautiful printing, [yet] not without error??? Why not first send a
copy for review, as I have already often requested; in every copy errors creep in
that any astute proofreader can correct, although I am practically certain that
there are few or even none in the copy that I give you, it is impossible always to
send you his (?) manuscript, but I have reviewed so carefully the trios, the sym-
phonies, that with accurate proofreading there could be only few and insig-
nificant mistakes—I am quite irritated about this—here the listing; if you let
poets and authors print the errata list in their absence at the printery, then do
the same [here] as well—here I will take care of it myself—. . .
One sees clearly from this how errors in the original prints annoyed him, and the
suggestion he makes to the publisher to print errata sheets for musical works just
as is the custom with books is Beethoven through and through. Oddly, the edi-
tor (Kalischer) comments: “the whole sentence with the ‘poets and authors’ is very
unclear; the copyist must have read incorrectly here. Where is the original? (P. 295)”
And yet Beethoven’s suggestion should be considered very seriously even today.
As further support for the principle that only the manuscripts of great masters
give rise at all to the questions discussed in these editions, however, I want to men-
tion already here the manuscripts of still other great masters, to which I will return
in more detail only in my Kleine Bibliothek.3 Thus I recently saw Chopin’s autograph
for the Scherzo in E Major, Op. 45—extremely graceful and neat like everything
written by this master’s hand, and detailed in such a way that there can simply be
no thought of any unexpressed wishes on the master’s part. The original edition
then also confirms the final authority of the manuscript, and yet: even in a case of
such rare agreement between manuscript and first print, the former nevertheless
shows several brilliant pen-strokes that speck directly to the eye and lead reliably to
important conclusions, about which, however, the engravers and proofreaders made
no great fuss and which therefore are also missing in the first print.
The situation is similar with master Brahms’s autograph of Op. 117; although the
first print can in general certainly be credited only with best fidelity, there can nev-
ertheless be found in the manuscript (leaving aside a single important improvement,
which Brahms obviously made at the last moment) still several other features, even
very important ones, to which the first print proved unequal.
Where a first print has been guilty of such negligences, later printings are seldom
in a position to rectify them, not only because editors generally do not consult the
manuscript, but because, assuming the good luck that they did so, they prefer to
ignore and undervalue the significance of the writing features here under consider-
ation. The reader then, to learn the truth in the master’s terms, would first have to
rise above the printed misrepresentation in such cases—but is that not assuming too
much, at least the courage to doubt editor and engraver?
These and similar experiences justify, indeed oblige, me even to state that it would
be desirable if governments were to have the valuable autographs of great masters
that are found in both public and private possession photographically copied, and
the copies made accessible in their public libraries (by which, incidentally, those pre-
cious items also could be better preserved).4 Indeed, it would even be advisable to
have such prints available for purchase, so that first of all public music schools, but
then also musical amateurs, might bring themselves to acquire them; if, among the
latter, there might be those for whom the acquisition would serve only to satisfy their
3
[The title by which Schenker referred in earlier texts to what became Der Tonwille.]
4
[As Oswald Jonas explains in 1112 (p. 7n),]
This wish on Schenker’s part has been fulfilled. One of his pupils, Anthony van Hoboken, took up the idea
and in 1927, under Schenker’s guidance, founded a Photostat Archive for Musical Manuscripts of the Masters
at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The importance of this Archive, as well as of Schenker’s constant
and tireless emphasis on the superior importance of manuscripts for musicology and practical editorial activ-
ity (Urtext and Collected Editions), cannot be stressed highly enough and must ever be reiterated.
vanity, that would have to be tolerated for the sake of the endeavor. I know what
difficulties are often involved in getting manuscript owners to acknowledge their
ownership at all, not to mention getting them to provide the government presenta-
tion copies in the form of photographic images. Whatever the reasons might be that
autograph owners conceal such ownership, a secondary decisive role is played also
by the complete ignorance of the usually superior significance of the manuscripts
of the masters in comparison to the first printing, not to mention later ones. When
asked for permission to examine autographs, the owners for the most part unabash-
edly express their astonishment: hasn’t the work already been faithfully reproduced
according to the manuscript in the existing prints? But in fact, how could collectors
and amateurs be expected to be better informed than musicians in a purely artistic
matter of such difficulty? That is how it happens that often individual pages, indeed
individual bars, of these priceless pieces are torn out and used as presents—to say
nothing of the despicable manuscript trade, which doesn’t do badly from the sale of
such amputated limbs.
It will be objected that governments have concerns other than the manuscripts
of masters. That viewpoint can be held only by the shortsighted, in praise of short-
sightedness. For one would almost be unable to call a government any organ that
did not concern itself with the maintenance of values of genius, even from the purely
economic standpoint. It is the calling of the genius as though continually to produce
relief works for the citizens and workers who are merely consumers of ideas and
works of art; anybody who has not grasped this should give up hope of comprehend-
ing the concept of state in its highest manifestation in the human sphere.
It is only a consequence of the plodding progress of publication of my works that
I have, despite so many opportunities, thus far neglected to speak of the concept of
the Urlinie, whose final shaping and rationale belongs to Vol. II3 of my Neue musi-
kalische Theorien und Phantasien.5 But since meanwhile the printing has advanced
and the prospect is in view of being able to present the work in the foreseeable
future, I will now for the first time speak of this concept within the framework of
the Commentary Editions as well, and in fact in rather more detail than I was able
to do in Counterpoint I, where I first hinted at the idea on p. 96/136.
The sketches added to the discussion at several points will obviously at first
show what I mean by Urlinie. Then the commentaries may also help the reader to
assimilate the concept before becoming aware from the primary text6 of its position
within the whole theory, and thus to achieve complete clarification. At the same
5
[The as-yet unwritten Der freie Satz. Schenker originally (and still at this time) conceived the work as part
three of Kontrapunkt.]
6
[That is, Der freie Satz.]
time, I refer to the first issue of the Kleine Bibliothek, in which I likewise devote
some discussion to the same concept a propos of the Fifth Symphony by Beethoven.
The Urlinie is property of the genius alone, and this explains why knowledge of
it was not already fetched down from those lofty heights long ago. (As we see clearly
at the moment, men will sooner learn to fly in the sky than to elevate themselves to
the level of the genius.)
A musical work comes into being as an interweaving of Urlinie, scale degree, and
voice leading. All of these fundamental fluids and forces—motif and melody spring
from the Urlinie—constantly interpenetrate one another; one must not be confused
about this reality by the manner of conceptualization according to which we can
bring each of these to consciousness only individually. The nature of a human being,
for example, as a self-contained whole mysteriously woven of a thousand forces is
not canceled by the fact that knowledge of this whole can be provided only by dif-
ferent fields of study that deal with the particular, such as, for example, anatomy,
psychology, and so forth. This means to say that it is possible, indeed necessary, to
speak of the Urlinie too in particular, even though it may cooperate inseparably
with others in the interplay of forces within the work of art.
In a sense the Urlinie is the photograph of the soul’s core. As the latter accom-
panies a person from cradle to tomb, so the Urlinie accompanies from the first to
the last tone. It therefore can also be compared, to stay with the analogy, to the life
span of the human, with the seventy years of the psalmist, because all that is only
apparent vanishes before it exactly as so many hours before the year and so many
years before the Urlinie of life. For recognition of the Urlinie of a piece of music,
then, the only thing that is difficult is the fact that one often tends to overrate the
momentary situation of the voice leading—merely because it is of the moment—just
as in human life the moment is often blown out of proportion.
In consideration of the Urlinie-forms, one must not become disillusioned that
they all resemble one another in constant lines progressing by seconds, in repeti-
tions, or also in a rise and fall, regular as inhaling and exhaling. It is the artist’s work
to evoke, by means of this particular number of second-steps, these particular kinds
of repetitions, this particular rise and fall, unique tensions; to elicit from the rise
and fall, and simultaneously from the fundamental laws of voice leading and scale
degree, ever new modes of play of individual motifs and melodies, and thus to imbue
each case with the stamp of the particular: semper idem, sed non eodem modo [“ever
the same, but not in the same way”]—the artist can do no more.
If such immutable laws of the human soul operate constantly in the work of art
as well—I repeat (cf. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Preface, p. VII/4) that even the
genius is bound by general laws, except that, in contrast to the non-geniuses, he can
actually fulfill them through the work of art and give them application —, then one
must not consider it only a metaphorical expression when I say that the Urlinie wants
to be grasped not only mentally but experientially, with all of the virtually physical
effort or joy with which the lines project their rise and fall. If the line should in one
place exhibit effort and exertion on the way to a particular goal, then this effort must
also be expressed by the performance in its way; if in another place the line flows gaily
toward another goal, then the performance must likewise commit to gaiety.
Then there is the marvel of the fingering. The Urlinie demands truth in a different
sense than that conceived by the run-of-the-mill fingering art; for in its terms, what
appears to be the best and most convenient fingering solution according to the tones
in line for immediate execution is not seldom—indeed is frequently—untruth. Thus
the hand as well must aid in expressing the truth of the Urlinie—and it can. And
that it can bears witness, as does everything about human capability, to the superb
divine wonder in the human being.
But does the genius himself know anything of the Urlinie? Well, it is clear that
the genius has no need to express such knowledge exactly with my consciousness,
with my words. Still, when we see him definitely follow the path of the Urlinie,
exercising marvelous cultivation of it, of order also in variation; if we see him polish
it and have to infer that he wishes to go only this way and no other: what then shall
we call that which drives the genius in all of these concerns?
Musical works of non-genius certainly also contain here and there a bit of Urlinie,
but one need only cast a glance at the music surrounding the passage in question and
one grasps immediately from the vacillation, from the confusion in ends and means,
the bumbling about from one track to another, that obviously it is only a lucky coin-
cidence that has been responsible here and there. Such tone-setters lack precisely the
marvelous natural gift and divine strength of nerve to bear up under the enormous
demands that are a precondition in tonal life for a reliable paving of the path.7
It is exactly that differently and specially natured consciousness of the genius of
which Goethe speaks:
But what mainly warrants our application of strict requirements, of definitive

laws, is this: that precisely the genius, the inborn talent, is the first to recognize
7
To speak of a certain “line” is today much in favor among the producers of so-called impressionistic pieces. But
wherever—as in these products—the effect amounts to nothing but tonal noise (which, like any noise, repre-
sents only an acoustical event, but not yet art), the “line” of the tonal noise certainly says nothing more than the
lines that, in their rise and fall, are able to make their presence felt also in other noises (e.g., in thunder, the mov-
ing of tables, the rolling of autos, etc.). The fashion for such tonal noises comes from France—that alone says
everything. French-ness, which in music (as indeed in other areas as well, with the possible exception of the so-
called exact sciences) has never had much to lose—no Bach, Handel, no Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert,
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, nor any Wagner, Bruckner—this Frenchness can afford to indulge in the
fashion of such nonsense, even to name it as a national art (which would be only consistent), but what has
Germany to do with such noise, such linear depravity, when it possesses such mighty Urlinie-runes?
them and to pay them most willing compliance. Only the mediocrity wants to
substitute his limited specialty for the unlimited whole and to coddle his mis-
understanding with the excuse of an imperious originality and independence. 8
Or another passage:
What we like best is involvement with the genius: for he is disposed by excel-

lence of mind to recognize early what is useful to him. He understands that
Art is called Art precisely because it is not Nature. He is happy to respect even
what could be termed conventional: for what is that but the thing that the
most excellent men have agreed to regard as the best, the necessary, the indis-
pensable; and does it not produce successful results at all times?9
Or:
I am pleased that you now come round to the new version of Iphigenie; I would
be still more pleased had the difference become more perceptible to you.
I know what I have accomplished there, and I am at liberty to speak about it
because I could accomplish still more. If it is a pleasure to enjoy the good, it is a
greater one to enjoy the better, and in Art, the best is good enough.10
Kant too says the same thing:
Genius is the talent (natural gift) that gives Art its rule. Since talent, as innate
productive ability of the artist, itself belongs to nature, one could also put it
as follows: genius is the innate mental disposition (ingenium) through which
Nature gives Art its rule.11
Or Lessing:
Ein Geist, den die Natur zum Mustergeist beschloß,

Ist, was er ist, durch sich; wird ohne Regel groß.
Er geht, so kühn er geht, auch ohne Weiser sicher.
Er schöpfet aus sich selbst.
Er ist sich Schul’ und Bücher.12
8
[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre, ed. by Eduard von der Hellen (vol. 20
of Goethe’s Sämtlich Werke: Jubiläumsausgabe; Stuttgart and Berlin: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung
Nachfolger, 1902), Part 2, Chap. 8, p. 10.]
9
[Ibid.]
10
[Ibid., Italienische Reise (Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1914), p. 202.]
11
[Immanuel Kant, Kritik der Urtheilskraft (vol. 7 of Immanuel Kants Werke. Gesammtausgabe in zehn
Bänden; Leipzig: Modes und Baumann, 1839), p. 168.]
12
[Gotthold Ephriam Lessing, G. E. Leßings poetische Schriften (Reuttlingen, Germany: J. G. Fleischhauer, 1776,
p. 191.]
(A Spirit which Nature has designated as a model

Is what it is through itself; it becomes great without rules.
Securely it goes, so boldly it goes, without signpost.
It creates out of itself. It is its own school and books.)
And just the security, which the genius manifests (“securely it goes . . . without sign-
post”) by deriving his own special laws from the situation at hand, all of which of course
come down ultimately to the same fundamental laws, differentiates in the art of music
as well the genius from the non-geniuses, which, within a confused, disoriented whole,
are graced only here and there with the security of accidentally successful lines.
Understanding of the Urlinie, then, most reliably promotes understanding of the
genius as well. But genius-lore is like the lore of the heavens. The stars were in the
heavens long before men began to think about them at all; men looked upward to
them with pleasure or with fear. Later, however, they learned to read relationships
among the constellations that proved useful to them, and since that time, the ben-
efit of this understanding continues unabated. The starry heavens of the geniuses
sparkle above us, but humanity has not yet been able to achieve a proper relation to
them. How much does the minuscule part of the world of ideas derived from genius
by the average person count for in comparison to the enormous godsend that he
could and should derive? But that would require modesty and reverence in the same
measure as that in which these qualities grace the true genius. Who can fail to see,
though, that above all the present generation completely lacks these virtues, which
thus clearly reveals how far short it falls of genius, indeed even of talent.
In view of the high demands that Art and its spokesmen, the geniuses, make of us,
it is particularly irritating when hermeneutists, amateurs, critics, those demonstrably
“can’t-read-notes” individuals,13 still refuse to part with the favorable prejudice that
they have toward their personal impression. A few comments are in order at this point,
then, about the preconditions for an artistically true impression in the field of music.
The precondition of any such impression at all is an object that, as the word itself
implies, impresses. When somebody speaks to us of the sun, we know definitely that
he is not confusing this powerful heavenly body with a glowworm, nor with a fog or a
passing cloud: we know, in short, that he takes the sun for the sun, and it is certainly
irrelevant whether he knows as much about it as, for example, Copernicus, Newton,
Goethe, etc. When somebody describes a landscape, we know that he is not confusing
forest with meadow, flowing water with dewdrops, a goat with a grain-dolly: in short,
that he is speaking of the objects on the basis of their physical characteristics.
In language too, humans set definite limits for words and ideas, as though they
too were physical objects of nature, like fish, table, candle, and so forth, and they
13
[Nicht-Noten-lesen-können.]
never make the mistake of disregarding such limits out of whim or for the sake of an
allegedly different type of impression to the extent of attaching the last syllable of a
word, for example, to the syllable body of the next one, such as:
Schicksal los wieder schlaf ende Säug ling atmend ie Himmlischen (Hölderlin,
Hyperions Schicksalslied)14
Or obliterates commas, periods, as in:
Wer reitet so spät durch? Nacht und Wind es ist der. Vater mit, seinem Kind.
(Goethe, Erlkönig)15
We see, perception and replication of any impression keep completely within those
limits that the objects of the environment, the words and the thoughts show as nat-
ural and essential hallmark of their inner life.
But music long ago reached a point at which tonal successions form themselves into
tonal words, and combinations of a higher type are based thereupon, as is the case
in language as well, where words used for this or that purpose are set just so and not
otherwise. But just because so little of this, really nothing of it whatever, is known to
men, and because, incidentally, it is more convenient to know nothing of it, they dis-
avow the inner life of tones. While a helpless ignorance of tonal life thus usually con-
strains them to produce the most comical caricatures—how many of those, all exactly
reminiscent of the above-cited linguistic and conceptual miscarriages, haven’t I cited
already in my works, how many don’t I cite again in 101!—, they swagger with their
impression and petulantly demand, especially when they abuse the public forum, the
right to express precisely such an impression, as though what they produce were not
expression before any possibility of an impression at all. The upshot of all this, how-
ever, is that in the sphere of tones, people will not be able to attain a respectable,
artistically commensurate impression until they have learned to acknowledge the
presence of inner life and physicality in the phenomena of that sphere just as certainly
as they assume such characteristics to be present in whatever they see and in whatever
they speak of; but this and this alone can justly count as “able-to-read-notes.”
It is only fair to set this as a first requirement for the musician.
Die Kunst bleibt Kunst! Wer sie nicht durchgedacht, Der darf sich keinen
Künstler nennen; Hier hilft das Tappen nichts! Eh’ man was Gutes macht,
Muß man es erst recht sicher kennen.16 (Goethe)
14
[As written by Hölderlin: Schicksallos, wie der schlafende / Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen.]
15
[As written by Goethe: Wer reitet so spat durch Nacht und Wind? / Es ist der Vater, mit seinem Kind;]
16
[Goethe, Künstlers Apotheose (Berlin: Gustav Hempel, n.d.), p. 195.]
(Art remains Art! He who has not thought it through may not call himself
artist; Here fumbling about is of no avail! In order to make something good It
is all the more necessary to know the good well.)
Anybody who cannot do this certainly should not indulge in metric studies or the
like. What help would a Germanist get from the industry and acumen that he put
into metric study if he used as a basis the Hölderlin lines in the distortion displayed
earlier? (And that, indeed, is the practice of Riemann, who still reads altogether
wrongly, but is all the more assiduous in applying his metric theory to misread tonal
words.) Need I add more explicit confirmation of how much a goal-conscious musi-
cian would benefit from seeing before him the original notation—as profound as it
is original—of the masters instead of that falsifying, ear- and mind-draining editor
notation? He would learn with the masters precisely also to hear better, to write
better.
Of the layman, of course, the same thing certainly cannot be demanded, and the
Goethe dictum remains true: “The layman may opine. The artist, behind the scenes
of his craft, is supposed to be more enlightened.”17 But this would really have to be
restricted to listeners who are innocent of all arrogance in judgment. Just the moral
law of responsibility, however, intensifies the requirement of that “ability to read
notes” for all of those who, like the much-touted hermeneutists, critics, and so forth,
want to mix in with musicians.
That it would be possible also to impose the requirement for all in a certain
measure—to this conviction, which I have already expressed earlier (see 110, p. 16f.),
I still hold fast. But one must become clearly conscious of the resistances in order
to be able to overcome them. Don’t forget above all that the non-artist is otherwise
accustomed in life to “have something” of all things—even of relationships which,
as, for example, marriage, family, state, are supposed to remain elevated above such
common expedients—, that in Art he suddenly encounters a thing of which in this
sense he can “have nothing.” How difficult any access at all for him! Give him the
best of Art, and this best also in the best form—what does he get from it, what is the
point of the effort when he is unable to get the good out of it even on the personal
level with his fellow men? Add to this the feeling of embarrassment, that in music
there are obviously things of which he previously had no knowledge—what is more
understandable than that the average person prefers to be content with expedients
that spare him effort, embarrassment, and responsibility. Here a well-schooled
17
[Ibid., Maximen und Reflexionen (ed. by Max Hecker; Vol. 21 of E. Schmidt and B. Suphan, eds., Schriften der
Goethe-Gesellschaft; Weimar, Germany: Verlag der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 1907), No. 1075, p. 224.]
academic authority must take control with power and dignity; such an authority
must lead the way.
But isn’t all of that reason enough to call for continuation of a Literature section
[found in the Companion Website] such as I have maintained in my works thus
far? Then only the remaining question would be, if necessary, about the form in
which I depict the one who is absolutely incompetent in comparison to the German
music-genius, the “can’t-read-notes.” That I persist in objectivity need not be proven,
even to those who may have been the object of what they took as aspersions. And
those who read into it a personal testiness appear clearly unwilling to excuse my
being—even with “testiness”—still right in the end, which, to them, seems too much
of a good thing. Oh, could they but better sense the pain that permeates me; sense
the sorrow for the loss of that most-essential-Germanness, which is at the same time
the pride of all mankind; sense the love of humankind, which drives me to help with
all my powers to repair damages and to avert new ones!
For the rest, however, people seem still unaware of how much sadder the situ-
ation of German music has become today than even the political situation of the
fatherland. Since the Wagner glacier has descended over the wonderland of our
great masters, broken the spine of the Urlinie, and thereby shaken the art of voice
leading—Wagner’s own voice leading is unobjectionable, but the destructiveness of
his music-dramatic technique had to emerge as soon as people, more Wagnerian
than Wagner himself and moreover so much more incapable than he, set out to
improve symphony, chamber music, the art-song as well —, since that time, things
have come to the point at which we would have to doubt whether the ear would ever
again be able to retrieve that creative greatness which distinguished it from the time
of Bach and Handel to that of Brahms. The excesses in Wagner’s music-drama, in
the so-called symphonic poems, or most of all in the products of the most recent
time, in which the intention of achieving an outward overtrumping of previous
limits is all too plain to see, should by no means hide the fact that the capacity of
the ear for structures organized on a larger scale on the truly respectable founda-
tion of a sound Urlinie and good voice leading has meanwhile been lost. Brahms
himself appears to have fought the final battle against the unpleasantness that has
thus been unleashed, and above all the howling of a critical establishment that,
through lack of knowledge, veneration, and character, struts forward savaged, deci-
mated, and totally debauched only behind likewise spiritually decimated musical
squalor devoid of both ear and knowledge—above and beyond all of this clamor,
Brahms, a new Dürer of German melodic invention, will remain even for the most
current youth a model of a brilliant creator of tonal structures. What that means,
however, can be assessed only by those who have begun to grasp how the artist
can arrive at such structures only by dint of a continuous outpouring of creative
power, and not through merely calculative intent. (Just as a Bismarck must be cred-
ited with more poetic-creative power in sense of nationality than those who cred-
ited themselves with such senses, but at the same time—for lack of creative power
and true design—succeeded, allegedly out of fairness, in pursuing the western, the
all-too-western, the international, and all things persisting in implacable contra-
diction to the German, and thereby in bringing about the disintegration of soul,
dignity, honor, and culture of their own race.)
It could sooner be expected that Alsace-Lorraine would claim from a dissolute
Franco-Senegaleseness its right to self governance (for Straßburg [= Strasbourg]
was and remains German, even if a certain “bourgeoisie” there hasn’t yet adequately
summoned strength of spirit to see through the palavering French deceit, and
believes itself to have found the path upward to a greater nation, where in reality
it sinks to a lesser one); that similarly all other parts of Germany severed from the
motherland by a rampant “imperialism” of its enemies along with most despica-
ble lies such as stand at the disposal only of the dishonorable democracies of the
West find their way back to a unified structure—all of this depends on the coming
generations, which, from most thorough knowledge of that which was, is, and will
remain German, will call to order the thievery of their neighboring nations18—still
sooner, I say, may all of that be expected than that the German ear, if it continues
indefinitely to ignore the masters, will restore itself to that exemplary capability
which could place German music—given that among the arts, music demands the
strongest creative nature—even above all artistic productions of humankind.
In such a desperate situation, then, should one who feels called upon to take up
arms against it proceed as those do who, intending to garner advantage and power
in the completely rotten parliaments, party clubs, and other political organiza-
tions of today, always grope ahead and proceed only by political calculation? Does
not service to the genius instead demand even a ruthless demolition of attitudes
that, in demolition of that which is genius, show themselves to be ruthless beyond
all measure? Today is not the time for lenience with maggots and canker-worms
that gnaw at the soul of the German; not only maggots and canker-worms want to
live: the German soul too wants to live, and for the sake of that soul—that infinitely
high, highest of all nation-souls, which bequeathed to mankind the highest peaks,
so high that they are still hidden not only from the eye of all other nations, but
18
[“Wahrlich, wäre die Kraft der deutschen Jugend beisammen, An der Grenze, verbündet, nicht nachzugeben
den Fremden, O, sie sollten uns nicht den herrlichen Boden betreten!” (Goethe).
(“Indeed, were the strength of German youth together, on the frontier, united, not yielding to the aliens, Oh,
they should not set foot on the splendid ground!”)
[Goethe, Hermann und Dorothea. Euterpe. Mutter und Sohn (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1965), ll. 98–100, p. 606.]]
unfortunately even from its own compatriots—for the sake of that soul the battle
must be waged all-out.
Whether it be called national or whatever, the German soul must finally wrest
itself from the poison and dirt of the West. Like the individual life, a nation too
lives on according to the inborn seed, and the past bears witness for the future as
well. Mustn’t all of the destructiveness in which the peoples of the West at present
engage be foreordained in their blood itself if they are at all capable of such things?
Could the French nation, for example, have sunk so low as the Senegalese affair if
the two were not “kindred by choice” in barbarism? And must it not be expected
with certainty that even in the most distant future the evil nature of those peoples
will erupt just today, the more disgusting the longer it has meanwhile—in the inter-
est of certain advantages or just simply for the sake of better appearances—been
forcibly suppressed?
How completely different the past of the German nation! Would it not there-
fore be self-falsification if the German national soul needlessly—for here there is
no compulsion—knuckled under to alien national souls and accepted their social
or political institutions, which stand in such crass contradiction to its own essence,
to its own past?
While first of all remaining true to itself, the German soul should strive, beyond
a democracy of the western stamp; beyond “platform” and wild St. Vitus dances of
elections, to which those nations are referred for want of a truly creative imagina-
tion and for the sake of a stronger stimulus; beyond the so-called League of Nations,
the so-called Internationale and salaried clergy, toward its high calling, on whose
fulfillment alone the healing of mankind depends.
The way there, however, leads only through recognition and stewardship of all
that is inherent in the German genius, as in a highest line of nobility. And as the
German genius has at all times felt and acted as German, so will the German nation
too, cultivating its masters, feel as a nation, and thus be in position to influence
mankind in all the more definite a manner.
At this opportunity let my warmest thanks be expressed to Mr. Louis Koch in

Frankfurt and Dr. Wilhelm Altmann, Director of the Prussian National Library
in Berlin, who on this occasion as well, as for earlier projects, most cooperatively
facilitated my access to the exquisite manuscripts of the master.
Finally I respectfully address to the reader of these pages the request to lend me their
help in retrieving the autograph of the piano sonata Op. 106, which is shrouded in an
enigmatic darkness. I would be thankful for any pointer that would direct me even to
fragments. For the sake of simplicity, I request that any necessary communications be
sent to the publisher of the Erläuterungsausgabe, Universal-Edition in Vienna.
And with utmost pleasure I announce further that the initiation of work on a
Collected Edition of the piano sonatas of Beethoven for Universal-Edition in
Vienna will give me the opportunity to elucidate, in the Kleine Bibliothek men-
tioned earlier, the remaining sonatas of the master as well, although of course more
concisely.
Commentary
For Beethoven can write, thank God; but for that, certainly nothing in the world.
beethoven, letter to Ries, December 20, 1822
First Movement
Etwas lebh aft und mit der innigsten Empfindung
Allegr etto, m a non troppo
It happens by no means seldom that in a sonata movement, just as in the present Bars 1–4
one, the modulation to the second theme is already integrated into the consequent
phrase of the first theme. If there were nothing more to it than that, we would have
to admire as far bolder a technique like that of Beethoven in his youthful work,
Op. 2, No. 1, where—in the first movement, bars 9ff.—the first tones of the conse-
quent are already immediately taken over by the modulation. What in Op. 101 far
exceeds this daring feat of the early work, however, is the circumstance that here
the consequent, having embarked on the modulation, simultaneously also yields the
head of the second theme, so that the latter—exactly as a product of the consequent
character—shares the motif with the first theme. Now it would amount to a misjudg-
ment of the nature of sonata form if one were to espy a contradiction in such a proce-
dure, for the point of emphasis in that form is above all the modulation between the
21
first and the second theme—that is, the opposition of the keys, not that of the the-
matic aspect; for this reason, the second theme can under certain circumstances be
related to the first, or may even be identical to it, so long as it occupies the territory of
an opposing key. (Compare 111, pp. 42–43, etc.) In this sense Beethoven’s technique
in the First Part1 of our sonata movement can be understood as a most extreme
compression of no fewer than three formal components: a consequent of the first
theme, the modulation, and the second theme. This is possible, as stated, because
the second theme of a sonata movement need by no means exhibit a new motif.
The ultimate basis for the compression just depicted, however, is of course to be
found in the nature of the content in the antecedent phrase. If the melodic line of
bars 1–2 expresses the composing out of the dominant:
Fig. 1
and if immediately afterward bars 3–4 present an inversion of the line:
Fig. 2
in which, moreover, bars 2 and 4 chime together in a rhyme-like manner—the

profound meaning of all of this will be shown below—, this signifies a division
into two, a confrontation somewhat like that of statement and counterstatement,
which, for expository purposes, may be designated here as a and b (see above, Figs. 1
and 2). And it is the considerably accelerated pulse of this covert dialogue that deter-
mines the course of action in the continuation—thus first of all in the consequent
phrase: how often do statement and response not give rise to an accelerated rhythm,
indeed even conceptual leaps, without causing any interruption in the logic?
Finally it should be noted in reference to the voice leading that the seventh of the
treble voice in bar 2 (see Fig. 1) resolves only to the c ♯ of the bass in bar 4, so that
1
[The exposition. See 109, I, note 2.]
First Movement 23
the tone a in the left hand of bar 3 is to be interpreted only as inner voice and not as
actual bass (see Fig. 2).
The consequent begins, as is normal, first with a repetition of the antecedent’s Bars 5ff.
beginning (bars 1 and 2), but already in bar 6 the V takes a turn to VI in the sense of
a deceptive cadence, where the melodic aspect undergoes a corresponding change:
Fig. 3
These changes too—there is also a fermata above the VI—derive their justification,
incidentally, from the relatively closed-off character stemming from bars 1–2.
Through revaluation of the VI as a II in bar 6, the modulation to E major as the
key of the upper fifth is introduced. In bar 7, II is succeeded by V—observe the lead-
ing tone already at the second eighth—, after which I follows in bar 8.
In bars 7–8 the thematic idea of bar 1 (or bar 5) again takes over, and already Bars 8ff.
in bar 8 we see the motif not only an octave higher, but (which is more impor-
tant) expressed even in the sense of the tonic of the new key—a circumstance
that is most decisive for the assumption of an immediate arrival here of the
second theme:
Fig. 4
All that is missing for a repetition of model a in its unabbreviated version—see bars
1–2 in Fig. 1—is the replication of bar 2 (or 6); such a replication now follows, although
disguised almost to the point of unrecognizability, in bars 9–10, which stand for:
Fig. 5
Here we discern an enlargement of bar 2, which corresponds to the expansion of

bar 1 that occurs in bars 7–8 (compare also 111, p. 23). The scale-degree progression
in these bars is:
bar 9 │10 ,
IV—│II——V
in which the IV is entered upon by means of a suspended passing-tone harmony in

the manner of a deceptive cadence (as though C ♯ minor: V—VI, see Harmony §143).
It might now seem that what the composer has undertaken in bars 7–10 by way
of replications of the first theme is almost too much for what the second theme in a
sonata form normally signifies; Beethoven, nevertheless, refuses in the continuation
to be distracted by any kind of pattern or preconception, and rather composes all
the more deliberately in bars 11ff. a further replication of the antecedent, namely the
component of bars 3–4. Thus from this point on, in bars 11–16, model b, the inver-
sion (see above, Fig. 2), in turn takes over. To arrive at a full understanding of these
bars one must first grasp clearly that the content of bars 11–16, considered initially
apart from any expansional purpose and with most faithful replication of bars 3–4,
can be traced back to the following:
Fig. 6
This simplification shows in comparison to bar 11 the alteration first of all that the
latter begins with e2 and not f ♯ 2 , a correlative of the fact that the f ♯ 2 had just been
“used up” in bar 10 and thus could not be stated again, at least not immediately.
Parenthetically, it is for exactly that reason that the harmony at the first quarter of
bar 11 is not to be interpreted as a IV but as an accented- or passing-tone harmony:
Fig. 7
First Movement 25
There, as this same figure shows, the half-step progression of the bass in bar 9 is to
be considered the reason that in bar 10 the root (here of V) again arrives not until
the upbeat and thereby sets the stage for that accented-passing-tone phenomenon.
Such organic ferment in the soul of the master! What then happens in bars 12–13
serves the express purpose of presenting a repetition of that earlier descending tone
succession in such a way that in the sense of Fig. 6, f ♯ 2 is made to appear explicitly at
the head of the succession. This purpose is achieved, as the following sketch shows:
Fig. 8
through a technique of exchange and repositioning,2 which springs in equal measure

from the respective impulses toward expansion of content and toward scale-degree
enrichment. Within the span of bars 7–16, then, we encounter the tonic of the new
key no fewer than three times—in bars 8, 12, and 13—,3 and this only confirms that
the content of these bars rises far above the purposes of merely a consequent phrase
and a repetition to assume the rank of a second theme.
Although it necessarily followed simply from the deceptive cadence of bar 16 that Bars 16ff.
the content would now have to lead to an authentic cadence, even the expectation
of such a predictable path—and on this point we are indeed not mistaken—could
not have enabled us to decipher Beethoven’s construction in this passage, given his
so unique ability to disguise something obligatory and—accordingly—also willed
from the start. It had to be no less predictable how the authentic cadence was to be
attained, since the latter can arise (in both strict counterpoint and prolonged free
composition) in no other way than through use of the two leading tones,4 thus in
our case as follows:
2
[By “re-positioning” is meant the rearrangement, at the end of bar 13, of the passing-tone chord at the last
eighth of bar 12 so as to reintroduce f ♯2 from above. This reintroduction is effected by means of a descend-
ing two-note succession (a 2—g ♯2) matching the preceding one (f ♯2—e2) in bar 12. It is the technique that
Schenker later called Übergreifen (reaching over); see Free Composition, §§129–134 and §233.]
3
[Although in each case only as a passing-tone harmony.]
4
[The ascending and the descending leading tones, of which the latter is not conventionally so termed in
English. See Counterpoint I, §23.]
Fig. 9
And yet even in relation to this precept the general ear could again fail, simply
because this time the master says the “ever-the-same”5 somewhat differently from
how it has been heard in a thousand other cases.
Beethoven’s imagination, secured by most profound secrets of piano writing, now
works as though on two strands at first to keep apart the paths of the two leading
tones, but ultimately to have them merge into the common goal of the authentic
cadence. If we compare Beethoven’s realization to the schema of cadential possibili-
ties just provided (Fig. 9):
Fig. 10
5
[“Ewig-dasselbe,” a German translation of the first two words of Schenker’s motto, semper idem sed non
eodem modo, ever the same but not in the same way.]
First Movement 27
we see how, just at the turn of bars 17–18, the melodic line leaps away from the path
of the descending leading tone g ♯ 1—f ♯ 1 suddenly to take up the tone b2 , which had
to lead to the other path, that of the ascending leading tone (see the final eighth,
d ♯ 2 , in bar 24). The abandonment of the one path and the assumption of the other
naturally imparts to the formation of the cadence an exhilarating expansion that is
increased in the continuation through the fact that, as the sketch shows, a similar
to-and-fro occurs two more times as well. The ascending leading tone is fulfilled
first, in bars 24–25, while the descending one is made good only in bars 26–27.6
That the eighth-note group in bar 16, regardless of the manner of its participation
in the line according to Fig. 10, also asserts its own motivic life and in this capacity
represents only a new position of the principal motif (see bars 1–2, 7–8, 10), is no
doubt readily apparent. But it is endlessly enchanting to follow Beethoven’s genius
where—itself veritably captivated by the principal of opposition that governs the
lines (see Figs. 1 and 2, a and b)—it causes this opposedness to be maintained even
down into the last offshoots:
Fig. 11
While difficulty enough in understanding bars 17–18 is added already by the fact
that g ♯ 1 moves directly to f ♯ 2 (instead of f ♯ 1), and that as a result b2 in bar 18 neces-
sarily appears for b1 as well (all of this being intrinsic to the nature of piano writing,
which can sometimes distribute a series of tones that belong together into different
registers), confusion is intensified along the way by the figuration in bars 19–20,
21–22, and 23–24 if one fails to chalk it up to piano writing alone, taking it for
more than it actually signifies. The arpeggiation, proceeding through both hands
and fitted out with neighboring notes, has no purpose other than full realization
of the sonority, without presuming to make any kind of further contribution to the
thematic content. The modifications found in these arpeggiations aim only toward
extension of the sonority with respect to register, and simultaneously, in a free sense,
toward increase of resonance.
6
[The descending leading tone of course resolves to the tonic (in an inner voice—see the first two-voice model
in Fig. 9) already in bars 24–25, but does so in a conspicuous melodic line only in the bass of the subsequent
bars 26–27. See the discussion just below of bars 25ff.]
Bars 25ff. In the bass there now appears the cadential formula, which, as mentioned above,
brings the descending leading tone, while in the upper voice the ascending leading
tone simultaneously brings us to the goal tone. And that precisely is what bathes this
passage in the afterglow of fulfillment—a quality that is enhanced, incidentally, by the
uniform progression of the dotted quarters, which extinguishes the final trace of striv-
ing that marked the bars gone by. In this light, one might even speak here of a third
(closing) theme. What could be more understandable now than that the soul, revel-
ing in fulfillment, should wed itself in a spirit of gratitude to a higher world, in which
it virtually dissolves. The melody of fulfillment sounds once again, in the three-line
octave, and moreover in a rhythm of displacements, which cancels any earthly meter
and, just for that reason, seems to make the height more distant, more removed.
Fig. 12
As shown here, from the succession of the two final tones of the cadential formula
(F ♯ and E), a bridge gently swaying in a second-step is built that leads to the (actually
four-note) cadential formula. But in the latter, then, the tone A is used in place of B
(see bar 25), a change that was imposed on the master by the law that the high register
is a region governed by rules different from those of the low. What applies to the low
register, in which harmony has its seat, does not apply equally to the high, which
places melody in the foreground. Just try the opposite procedure of putting the tone
a in the bass in bar 25 and the tone b in the soprano in bar 31 and you will finally grasp
directly through this example the immutable nature of certain elements of tonal life.
The heading on the Autograph reads: “Neue Sonate für das Ham—von L. v.
Beethoven 1816 im Monath November.”
The following passages from Beethoven’s letters (Alfred C. Kalischer, Beethovens
sämtliche Briefe, newly revised by Theodor von Frimmel7) pertain to the title and ded-
ication of the sonata. Letter No. 564, to T. Haslinger (November 1816): “. . . regard-
ing the title, a linguist should be consulted as to whether Hammer or Hämmer
Klavier or for that matter Hämmer-Flügel should be used. Let me know which of
these titles.—”
Letter No. 571, to Steiner and Co. (1816): “By happenstance, I arrived at the fol-
lowing dedication: ‘Sonate für das Pianoforte oder—Hammerclavier verfaßt und
7
[Beethovens sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Ausgabe mit Erläuterungen von Alf. Chr. Kalischer. 2. Aufl., neu bear-
beitet von Th. v. Frimmel, vol. 3 (Berlin: Schuster und Loeffler, 1911).]
First Movement 29
der Frau Baronin Dorothea Ertmann geb. Graumann gewidmet von Ludwig van
Beethoven’8 for the new sonata. . . . The title needs first to be shown to a linguist.
‘Hammerclavier’ is certainly German, anyway the invention is also German; let
us give credit where credit is due.” Letter No. 641, to Steiner and Co. (23 January,
1814): “To the G[ese]ll[schaf]t of Steiner Esq. regarding my publications. After due
consideration and advice from our counsel we have decided and do decide that hence-
forth on all of our works where the title shall be written in German, Hammerclavier
instead of Pianoforte, according to which our better G-ll-t together with adjutants
and all others concerned will have to proceed and put this into practice. Instead of
Pianoforte, Hammerclavier—and that is the decision once and for all.”
One infers from this that just around the time of Op. 101 Beethoven was work-
ing toward Germanicization of Italian art-words, apparently to satisfy his sense of
nationality. The German tempo marking for the first movement is still lacking in
the Autograph, but is present already in the Original Edition.
Bars 1–4 are reproduced here exactly according to the Autograph. The
Autograph, at least, leaves no doubt that Beethoven truly did not want a tie
between the two e2’s of bar 4. We see here far too clearly for any talk of a possible
oversight how he begins the second slur already above the last eighth of bar 2 and
at first draws it up to the end of the third bar; how he then extends it after the fact
up to the third eighth of bar 4, but expressly breaks off at this point to begin with
a new short slur at the fourth eighth of the fourth bar—without, however, hav-
ing tied the two e2’s. The Autograph shows, incidentally, by way of the transition
passage to the last movement, where the same bars 1–4 return merely in simple
quotation (see below), that the master wants no tie of the two e2’s at that point
either. Here, then, Beethoven’s feeling and way of playing must have taken a path
that has not at all become natural to us thus far and will undoubtedly seem dif-
ficult enough. Considering that in the Autograph no manner of slurs are to be
seen in the left hand of bars 3 and 4, any possibility is ruled out of inferring the
master’s wish regarding tying of the c ♯ 1 in bar 4 with certainty comparable to that
regarding the e2 of the right hand. The Original Edition follows the Autograph
faithfully in bars 1–4, except that it begins the second slur only at the third bar;
but for the rest, there is no edition that does not contradict the Autograph and the
Original Edition with regard to bar 4 in particular, sometimes with tying of the
two e2’s, sometimes also with that of the two c ♯ 1’s.
In bars 5 and 6 according to the Autograph no slur is present; the Original Edition
does, however, draw one—and here I must assume the guidance of the master’s
8
[“Sonata for the Pianoforte or——Hammerclavier. Composed and dedicated to Baroness Dorothea
Ertmann, née Graumann, by Ludwig van Beethoven.”]
hand—up to the third eighth of bar 6, while other editions (for example, d’Albert,
Peters, Schott, etc.) even extend the slur as far as c ♯ 2 . Along with the Gesamtausgabe
and Urtext, I follow the Original Edition on this point. Not to include the quarter
note c ♯ 2 in the slur is advisable also, however, for the reason that only by that means
does it receive the emphasis comparable to that of an individual syllable,9 which at
this point is desirable in consideration of the fermata.
The manner in which Beethoven writes in bars 7–8 attests to a definite principled
basis: the tones of the melody he stems upward, the arpeggiating eighths downward,
while he assigns any filler-tones sometimes to one, sometimes to the other stem, but
always taking care that they not weight down the arpeggiating eighths just at any
first or fourth eighth and thereby becloud the voice leading at such decisive time
points.10 How alert the master’s sense of voice leading from note-head to note-head
must have been if he felt driven to exercise such care in such apparent trivialities!
Unfortunately, this most estimable way of writing got lost already in the Original
Edition; it thus achieves resurrection only in the present one. The Autograph knows
nothing of a slur in the left hand in these bars; while the Original Edition draws
one up to the third eighth of bar 8 and other editions extend the slur even further,
I myself have decided to follow the Autograph in this.
Both the Autograph and the Original Edition lack ties in the right hand in bar
12, while all later editions without exception have added them. The Autograph
even clearly shows traces of erased ligatures in the right hand, which offers com-
pelling proof that Beethoven wanted all tones of the chord of the fourth eighth
to be attacked. (The ligatures in the left hand, on the contrary, to the extent that
they were affected by that erasure, were even expressly redrawn and enhanced by
Beethoven.) And exactly the same applies, it may be noted in advance here, even to
the parallel passage in bar 64, where ties again are supplied only in the left hand.—
In bar 13 I follow the version of the Autograph (as well as the Original Edition) in
omitting the eighth rest for the fourth eighth; I had occasion already in earlier edi-
tions to comment that filler-voices of a piano texture need not have their comings
and goings so tediously notated by rests as editors in their blind zealotry like to do.
The less one is made aware of them through rests, the more closely one approaches
their true nature, and thus it would be fundamentally advisable accordingly to keep
the secrets of filler-voices hidden.—Beethoven’s notation of the right hand in bar 14
basically intends to express a portato:11
9
[Regarding the invocation of imaginary syllables, see 109, p. 75.]
10
[The only point at which application of the principle can actually be observed is the fourth eighth of bar 7,
where the filler tone is assigned to the same stem as the melodic tone.]
11
[“Portamento” in the original, by which Schenker consistently designates what is more usually called “portato.”]
First Movement 31
Fig. 13
as is actually presented immediately by the subsequent bar 15. That he [in the latter
case] uses strokes for this rather than dots may be noted only parenthetically. Here
in the present instance Beethoven arrived at this notation because of the suspen-
sions, which precede the actual melody tones at downbeat and upbeat. Accordingly,
Bülow’s comment on p. 2 under c is correct, although he does not undertake to
explain the ultimate reason behind this notation. Unfortunately, there are also edi-
tions, for example, the Conservatory Edition, that notate merely , which results
in the loss of the portato.
In bar 16 the notation of the Autograph had to be restored; unfortunately. it was
lost as early as the Original Edition and is no longer to be seen in any other edition.
I refer to the notation of the eighth-note group in the upper system (rather than the
bass system), through which the secret of the line, the continuation of the g ♯ 1 of the
downbeat by the last eighth g ♯ 1, is directly communicated to even the most cursory
glance. Such a notation truly supersedes mere engraver’s practice, style, or the like;
if we lost it long ago, that is by no means mere happenstance, but rather the sign of
a badly deteriorated hearing-culture that, itself incapable of creating coherent struc-
tures, no longer senses any need whatever to pursue such structures and to express
them re-creatively where they are given us by older masters. How Beethoven’s por-
tato notation is to be explained at this point is another question, since there can be
no citation of suspension formations as in bar 14. The answer: here the articulation
aims for a gradation and subtlety intended to animate the three eighths with move-
ment, as though we had, instead of only a single syllable, two of them, or even three,
including the following A ♯ .
In bar 17 the Autograph demanded allegiance in yet a different matter, to wit, the
upward stemming of the eighths in the right hand in keeping with the polyphony
emerging at this point. Only this notation clarifies that the last eighth, d ♯ 2 , is fol-
lowed by a leap to b2 . Here, however, in application of what was said above regarding
bar 13, it is by no means necessary—it is even superfluous and distracting—to notate
rests for the still silent inner voice. On this point too, incidentally, all editions are in
error, including the Original Edition.
Meticulous observation of the way Beethoven enters lengthening dots for the first
chords of the right hand in bars 19, 21, and 23 discloses that in bar 19 he writes three
of them, in bar 21 two, and in bar 23 only one! At first glance one would almost be
inclined to assume a mere oversight in bars 21 and 23, until a check of the parallel
passage in the Reprise, bars 71, 73, [and] 75, would teach one of a better way—a bet-
ter Beethovenian way. The master wanted it exactly so and also knew why: it is not
only that the arpeggiations of the left hand in bars 21 and 23 make it impracticable to
hold the b of the right hand for the full value of a dotted quarter; rather, above all it
is the need to concentrate the pressure on b1 that pushes the remaining tones of the
chord into the background as only filler-tones. If a dot is dropped from b in bar 21,
and dots from both b and e1 in bar 23, then to the same extent that the eye is already
unburdened, the hand too is freed and enabled to enlist in the service of the tone b1,
partly to enrich its expression, partly also more easily to plunge forth from it into
the arpeggiation. Of all editions, it is again only the Original Edition that repro-
duces the original notation, which demonstrates once again that Autograph and
Original Edition in the case of a master like Beethoven always show their superior-
ity to the hundredfold editions that are otherwise prepared by editors. That such a
fiendishly inventive fervor, in the midst of a headlong rush in quest of a faraway goal,
nevertheless has time and patience to make a distinction between a couple of specks
of tonal dust that simply no longer count for anything—should that not really fill
with horror and dismay the people today who no longer know how to apply presence
of mind and care even to the largest things? But how irresponsible, then, also the
undertaking of the editors who withhold such exquisite gradations from the eyes,
the ear, and the mind of the performer simply because they do not understand how
to form the correct Beethovenian ideas that befit Beethoven’s notation!
The slurring in bars 19–24 has followed strictly that of the Autograph.
Undoubtedly what the master had in mind is most accurately expressed with that
slurring which he so deliberately applies in the right hand of bars 19–20: no sooner
does the eye see how that slur extends straight past the eighth-note rest of bar 20,
how simultaneously a cresc. moreover presses forward across the same rest, than it is
immediately informed about the purpose of the arpeggiation, which clearly is there
less for its own sake than to provide, as a mere filler, conveyance to the melodic con-
tent that lies ahead. Unfortunately, Beethoven contents himself in bars 21–22 and
23–24 with a shorter version of the slur, whether because he felt the preceding nota-
tion to be sufficiently clear once and for all, or whether perhaps through oversight.
But granted, it remains inexplicable how the Original Edition could possibly arrive
at the following notation:
Fig. 14
First Movement 33
And this very notation (perhaps still more corrupted) then found its way into the
Gesamtausgabe and the Urtext, while other editions set the slur in bars 19–20
exactly as the one in bars 21–22 and 23–24. Incidentally, bars 23–24 originally stood
as follows in the Autograph:
Fig. 15
The subsequent improvement then entailed reduction of b1 of the left hand to an

eighth note. Regarding the slurring in bars 25–26, again the Autograph provided the
model; it appears also in the Gesamtausgabe and the Urtext, while other editions
play regular havoc with it.
The German tempo marking, even if taken quite literally, is far more suggestive
and appropriate than the general Italian one. Just the supplementary mit der inni-
gsten Empfindung (“with deepest sensitivity”) restricts the Lebhaftigkeit (“liveli-
ness”) so meticulously and emphatically that henceforth it might well never occur
to a performer to falsify the eighth-note motion here through that liveliness which
otherwise—but, certainly, only with content of a different nature—is appropriate
for an Allegretto marking. Besides, the composer expects the player to understand
the tempo marking above all on the basis of the content—not unlike the way that
he himself arrived at it on the same basis.
Thus in bars 1–4 care must be taken that the segments comprising bars 1–2 and
bars 3–4 respectively appear as though set off against each other because of their
opposedness, but on the other hand as though affiliated because of their connected-
ness. This effect will be achieved only if the lingering on e2 in bar 2 is most precisely
fine-tuned to the way one moves ahead to bars 3–4. At the turn of bars 2–3, it is the
need to bridge over the stretch of the octave with a kind of portamento that requires
a scarcely noticeable hesitation; at the beginning of bar 3, on the other hand, it is the
accented passing tone f ♯ 2 (6—5 in relation to a, more correctly 4—3 in relation to the
true bass c ♯, see Fig. 2) that—here approaching an appoggiatura in effect—requires
a retardation that is likewise scarcely noticeable. From that point on, try to grad-
ually regain the basic tempo, then to slow slightly only at the last eighths of the
fourth bar as befits the conclusion of the antecedent phrase.—The master’s poco
ritardando marking in bar 5 is to be understood and executed only in connection
with the fermata in bar 6; that is: if the player really fore-senses (along with the
composer) the coming deceptive cadence and fermata already at the beginning of
bar 5, then he cannot fail to bring about the necessary deceptive-cadential effect by
means of a merely moderate ritardando. Otherwise he runs the risk of exaggerating

the ritardando as well as the fermata. Just this risk must under all circumstances be
ruled out, for since the ideas flow so rapidly in the continuation that consequent,
modulation, and second theme pile on top of one another, that fermata means less
an actual resting point than only a small eddy in front of a great rapid. Since the
harmony of bar 7 moreover links back to that of the fermata (a form of tying), it is
prudent to blend into the hesitation of the ritenuto a certain readiness to move on,
and thus to produce a commixture that suitably expresses this glimpse of what lies
ahead. In bars 7ff., a gradual acceleration must set in, which is to be counterbal-
anced by an abatement only in bar 11. The octaves of the left hand here, however,
need—despite the crescendo—to be kept weaker by a degree than the melody of the
right hand; they should be kept free of a fullness and plumpness that would make
them unsuited, in this world of “deepest sensitivity,” to keep up with the quickened
pace of the melody. In bar 9 the suspending chord of the downbeat needs to receive
a strong emphasis, so that the actual scale degree, the IV on the upbeat, will have
the character of a release. This, however, must not prevent the middle of the three
eighths of the upbeat, the d ♯ 3 preceding the final c ♯ 3, from being similarly high-
lighted and for a similar reason. The coloration of this same eighth, d ♯ 3, can benefit
only if the right hand, forced by the excessive reach to choose between c ♯ 2 and e212 ,
decides in favor of c ♯ 2 , thus the reach of a ninth: in such a case the greater reach for
the hand signifies also a greater reach for the spirit. Thus Bülow errs when he gives
preference (p. 3, under b) to the fifth, e2 .
The diminuendo called for at the beginning of bar 11 must not be allowed to seduce
the player to a piano on the spot; he should rather at first maintain the preceding level
and decrease it only during the course of the bar. But after both the diminuendo and
the receding motion have simultaneously come to an end at the beginning of bar 12,
one must rouse oneself anew for the task of bars 12–13. There one should, as though
in search of the repetition, in a way “grope ahead” by means of the repositionings
depicted earlier (see Fig. 8) toward the f ♯ 2 of bar 14. An acceleration is to be combined
with the crescendo in bar 14; it lasts as far as the upbeat to bar 15, where the root of V
appears in the bass. The deceptive-cadence turning is then expressed by a slight retar-
dation. To secure in bar 14 the correct performance of the right hand, bear vividly in
mind the portato that is actually intended (see above, Fig. 13), and give expression to
the two suspensions by means of . In bar 16 the two g ♯ 1’s (that of the right hand
and that of the left) should, despite the rest, be directly connected sonically, which
will be achieved by sustaining the right hand’s g ♯ 1 beyond the notated value.
12
[That is, to choose which of these tones shall be sustained through the upbeat of the bar.]
First Movement 35
The battle over the cadential formula is to be waged almost with declamatory free-
dom. In bar 16, let a hesitation between the first and second eighths in the upbeat be
followed by an acceleration of the seventh-leap across the bar line. Such hesitation
and acceleration, carried out in correct measure, can produce a gratifying equilib-
rium even within the scope of these few tones, so that there need be no fear of the
impression of a dotted rhythm. In bar 18, go confidently as though sure of being able
in the very next bar to reach the ascending leading tone d ♯ 3 that is due, and through
it also the cadential tone; a special attack for g ♯ 2 in bar 19 may then help to paint the
surprise brought on by the sudden change of course. The crescendo in the same bar,
which at the same time presupposes an acceleration, serves two purposes simultane-
ously: it needs on the one hand to elucidate the press toward the cadence from the
standpoint just newly taken, and on the other to condense the arpeggiation through
both hands into a sonic mass so as to create the impression that a harmony intro-
duced by several wind instruments in concert were to well up gradually. Only such
an execution also secures an appropriate effect for the following piano, in which
we are again reminded of the other, abandoned path. The same manner of playing
is to be repeated two more times, in keeping with the content. But in bar 23 take
care especially that the left hand not release the fourth eighth before the following
eighth can be appended by the right hand in legato (and with pedal), as though the
notation stood thus:
Fig. 16
At bar 25 the marking espressivo e semplice actually expresses only tautologically what
the composition itself demands anyway. Here all of the espressivo effect is intrin-
sic, as is, in the simplicity of the tonal succession, also the semplice; accordingly, it
would be very mistaken, indeed even detrimental to the effect, if on the strength of
Beethoven’s marking the player sought here deliberately to produce an espressivo. If
the displacements in bars 29ff. are to be assured of the proper effect, one must press a
little toward the third eighth, but on the other hand hesitate somewhat immediately
after the tie; without such liberty taking, the rhythm of this passage, played with
clock-like regularity, would only sound exactly like the normal rhythm of the pre-
ceding bars. From this we learn once again how completely decisive in performance
are those highlights cast on a particular passage both by what has preceded and by
what follows.
Development. The three-line octave does, it is true, disappear again in bars 33–35, Bars 35ff.
but the deep emotion of the last bars of the First Part continues to reverberate in
the rhythm of displacement, which pervades almost the whole (bars 35–49!) of the
Development. For understanding of the latter, it is perhaps indispensable to start
with a summarizing sketch:
Fig. 17
First Movement 37
As is shown, bars 35–36 present the first theme in E major and, leaving aside the
issue of completeness, for the first time in the tonic version in such a way that (by
contrast to bar 8) the motivic construction begins on the root of the sonority.
Next the theme is transposed to the chord of C ♯ ♯ һ (falling third with chromati-
cization), but here again (since the sonority is of dominant quality) in a position
that recalls its appearance in bars 1–2, where it likewise took as its point of depar-
ture the third of the dominant triad. The chromaticization does its work, and in
bars 40–41 the triad on F ♯ appears as tonic of the preceding dominant. In this
triad now the tonic version of bar 35 is answered, so that the theme appears a
step higher. Along with ever-changing harmonies, bars 43–49 then bring repeti-
tions of only the second bar of the theme. With each change of harmony and
position, however, the motif ’s constituent interval naturally changes here as well;
it begins in bars 42–45 still as a third, becomes a fourth in bars 46–47, and a
diminished fifth in bars 48–49, given that just here—because of the type of pro-
gression of the lowest voice, which amounts to traversal of a third with chromati-
cization (B—G ♯ ):
Fig. 18
—the path of the upper voice too turns out all in all to be only a leap.13 This most
exuberant celebration of life on the part of the motivic component of bar 2 is fol-
lowed, in keeping with the directional opposition of the lines that is so fateful in
the present piece, first of all by the descending line (compare bars 3 and 4) in bars
50–51, which then provides all the more impetus to the ascending one (compare bars
5–6): as though prepared by several hesitating upward second-steps (bars 52, 53, 54),
the primary motif finally in fact occurs in the full shape of bars 1–2, and thus now
begins the Reprise.
13
[Thus the overall crescendo is given associative expression by parallelisms in the tonal construction: the final
step in the progressive enlargement of the constituent interval—that from a fourth to a diminished fifth—is
coordinated with a temporal enlargement that expands the former direct adjacency (e.g., d3—a 2 in bar 46
and f ♯3—c ♯3 in bar 47) to a succession that spans the distance from the f ♯3 of bar 48 to the b ♯1 at the end of bar
49 and incorporates several additional tones, and the diminished-fifth interval is intensified by expansion
to a diminished twelfth. The two parenthesized notes in Fig. 18 actually represent a five-tone succession in
the music: b ♯2—c ♯3 —| e ♯2—f ♯2—c ♯ 2 .]
Such logic and daring, though, just in the succession of harmonies:
Fig. 19
From F ♯ (bar 41) we move by way of the applied chord A7 (bars 44–45) to the lower
third D (bar 46); from here again by way of the applied chord F ♯ (bar 47) still another
third lower to B (bar 48), by which we simultaneously arrive at the lower fifth of F ♯.
But now the path leads through the applied chord G ♯ 7 (bars 50–52) upward again
to C ♯ 5 and from here by means of an accelerated 5—6—5—6 technique through
D ♯ to E. When we glance backward at the total journey, it is notable that the roots
falling by fifths, F ♯ —B—E, here interrelate almost with the effect of a VI—II—V
progression in the main key of A major, so strong retroactively is the effect of the
relationship of the scale degree E as a V back through a path by way of fifths to F ♯
as a VI. If we moreover envision the ascent of the series of tones on which the first
theme enters in bars 35, 41, and finally 55:
Fig. 20
we understand how this too contributes to those causal forces which finally drive
the Development ineluctably toward the Reprise.
The Autograph shows in bar 33 traces of the same bass notes as in the preceding
bar. The correction aims for a punctual preparation of the small octave, in which
the first theme will have to enter at the beginning of the Development.—According
to the Autograph, there is also no doubt Beethoven intended no tying-across
between bars 34 and 35, 37 and 38, and 40 and 41 respectively, and the Original
Edition confirms this. In fact, the absence of tying clarifies the collision of the two
rhythms, the displacing one and the normal, and helps the latter to prevail whenever
the first theme is to appear. The entrance of the first theme does, after all, demand
prominence of the downbeat, which would have to be lost in case of a tie (especially
between bars 40 and 41—see below). Apparently the significance of all these con-
nections was lost on those editors who either added ties at all of the cited points (for
First Movement 39
example, d’Albert, Bülow, Klindworth) or, still more capriciously, added them to
the one point but not to the other (Conservatory Edition, Schott).
That Beethoven avoids contra E in bars 43–44, as the Autograph indisputably
confirms, certainly is not because the instrument of his period may not have had
access to this register—we do see a contra E in the last movement of our sonata—;
rather, only by means of E could a bridge be constructed between the contra F ♯ of
bars 41–42 and d1 in bars 45–46, and thus the clash between that low register and
this “young bass” be reconciled. Unfortunately, there are editors enough (as, for
example, Peters, Schott) who think it necessary to give Beethoven a helping hand by
supplying a contra E.—In the Autograph we see the master begin a new slur above
the last eighth of bar 46, whose continuation in bar 47, at the beginning of a new
system, is missing; it is immediately clear that this is the result of a mere oversight.
But as Beethoven uses no slurs in the two subsequent bars 48–49, all of this made
things so much more difficult for the editors. The Original Edition solves this by
disregarding the slur that has been already started; the Gesamtausgabe and Urtext
on the other hand extend the slur of bar 46 against all logic up to g 3 of bar 47, while
other editions present completely arbitrary subdivisions of the content through
several short and longer slurs. I personally continue the slur started by Beethoven
to the only conclusion that he could possibly have intended, that is, to c ♯ 3 in bar 47,
but follow both Autograph and Original Edition in regard to bars 48–49, where
there are no slurs whatever. Nor is it difficult to state the reason Beethoven could
not have had slurs in mind for the latter bars, for here, where the enlargement is
in progress and the cresc. moreover “spiked” with sf accents, a single slur over both
bars would mar the relative independence of the fourth-space f ♯ 3—c ♯ 3 that is in any
case established by bar 48, while on the other hand two slurs—one each over bars
48 and 49—would contradict the overall result, which does amount to the space
of the diminished fifth (see above, Fig. 18). Regarding the sf ’s in the same bars, the
situation in the Autograph is such that they are applied only to the left hand in bar
48 and only to the right in bar 49. This distribution too could very well be consid-
ered to have had a reason, but it was possibly Beethoven himself who subsequently
decreed for the Original Edition the sf ’s for the left hand as well in bar 49. At the
upbeat of bar 51 the sign is clearly applied in the Autograph; its absence
from the Original Edition may likewise be due to a revision by the master. Most
editors (including those of the Original Edition, Gesamtausgabe, Urtext, etc.)
have fallen into a very amusing misunderstanding at the third eighth of bar 53. At
this point, specifically, they have misinterpreted the two lengthening dots on the
quarters c ♯ and e, which the master wrote a bit too large, as note-heads, and they
were not deterred in this even by the fact that the tones g ♯ and a in the left hand
are stemmed upward with the sense of an inner voice to be led independently. In
the right hand of the same bar we see in the Autograph an erasure below e2 of the
upbeat; there is no doubt that originally an a1 was written here as a quarter note,
which had to be deleted simply because of the necessity to avoid parallel fifths ;
that the master then writes no rests in place of the erased note has to do with his
practice, already mentioned often, of not indicating any at all for filler-voices. In
presenting this bar, then, I follow the Autograph exactly.—It will interest musi-
cians to hear that in bar 54 in the first chord of the left hand originally f ♯ was writ-
ten as well, thus , as incidentally is confirmed also by the still present lengthening
dot for the f ♯, which is clearly visible beneath the third eighth b. It is not only the
need for variation in the thickness of the sonorities—a succession of such thirds
would in itself be unwelcome to the ear—but also the circumstance that no outlet
is provided for that f ♯ of the small octave in bar 55. It is important to remark, how-
ever, that the Autograph clearly certifies the third in the same bar at the last
♯

eighth of the left hand, despite the fact that g is written for the right hand as well;
1
the Autograph is confirmed in this by the Original Edition, while, for example, the
Gesamtausgabe, Peters, and others assign the g ♯ 1 to the right hand alone.
For the performance of the main theme in bars 35–36 and also in bars 38–39,
although any indication by the composer is lacking, the same applies as for bars
1–2. At the connection of bars 40 and 41 the performer must emphatically avoid an
effect like this:
Fig. 21
The reason is that the third entrance, like the first and second, must begin on the
downbeat. Just the attack of all keys, as Beethoven specifies, will in itself elicit the
appropriate result here, and thus we again have occasion to marvel at the master’s
wisdom, which, with the one means of non-tying, is able to secure the entrance of the
main theme on the downbeat both thematically and in a purely keyboard-technical
way. The difficulties of bars 48–49 can best be surmounted through full conscious-
ness of the actual sense of the voice leading, especially of the passing tones in the
left hand. But perhaps it is advisable—especially to master the sf ’s—first to omit
the quarters of the downbeats [of the left hand] and to practice along with the right
hand only those eighth notes marked sf, at least until one has become sufficiently
familiar with the passing-tone harmonies. The propriety of expressing a certain
urgency in these bars—and also, incidentally, from the middle of bar 50 on—goes
without saying.
First Movement 41
Reprise. At the beginning of the Reprise the theme, as in bar 1, again lies in the Bars 55ff.
dominant of the main key, except already an octave higher from the outset, and, by
dint of mixture, in A minor rather than A major. Here the dominant character is even
so much more energetically emphasized in comparison to bar 1 given that the descend-
ing added voices take Ń (rather than Ļ ) as their point of departure. In addition, how-
ever, passionate imitations crowd in—as in the bass in bar 56 and in the inner voice
in bar 57 (left hand g ♯ 1—a1 and right hand b1—c2). In these ways, then—through the
register of g ♯ 2, the mixture-contrast A minor/A major, and the polyphonic activity of
the imitations—, the first theme here in the Reprise is provided with a substitute for
everything that antecedent-consequent construction and the counterpoise of bars 1–2
and bars 3–4 resulting from the opposing directions of the lines contributed in the
First Part to its eminence, so that as early as bar 58 we have arrived at the point where
formerly the amalgamation of consequent phrase and second theme (see bars 7ff.) had
already occurred. From here on, however, the Reprise takes its normal course.
Coda. The cadence in bars 84–85 is formed in a way corresponding to that of bars Bars 85ff.
32–33. But in the Reprise, it does not have the last word: several cadential cycles follow
for greater confirmation of the close. First, the falling line in bars 84–89 is continued
beyond a2 to d ♯ 2, which expresses the path to the IV7, while in bars 88, 89, and 90
the motif in the version of bars 10–11 is also interwoven. The IV then leads in bars
90–91 to V, in which the falling line is driven still lower, indeed to g ♯ 1. In this way,
then, the line—in terms of its path as a whole from bar 85—traverses an octave from
a2—(g ♯ 1) a1. From this it follows that the continuing downward force has the purpose
of now securing the cadence also by means of the ascending leading tone, but here in
the lower, one-line octave, thus by means of g ♯ 1. In bar 92 the first cadential cycle ends
with the tonic, but, evoked specifically by the motivic recollections of bars 88–89, the
first three tones of the first theme immediately appear again—in the tonic version and
departing from the root of the chord!—first on the downbeat of bar 90, and then, in
bars 92–94, an octave higher in enlargement and most brilliant variation:
Fig. 22
Let the following illustration serve as further clarification of the content from
bar 92 on:
Fig. 23
With c3, then, a mixture element penetrates into the motif (compare above, Fig. 22b,
bar 89), which, in bar 93 on the way to c ♯ 3, does sooner manifest the effect of a B ♯. In
this sense, bars 92–94 too mean to express essentially only the succession A—B—
(B ♯)—C ♯, and it is just there that the enlargement takes place. The composing out
of the step c3—c ♯ 3 (b ♯ 2—c ♯ 3) by way of the detour over e3, however, has the exclusive
purpose of evoking again the falling third of bar 2, which achieves expression in bar
95 and through which alone the replication, at last complete, of bars 1–2 is attained.
Only from this perspective can Beethoven’s harmonic organization and dynami-
cization (cresc.—dim.) be understood: no complete cadential cycle, then, is to be
understood already in bars 92–94, but rather only the root A is to be thought of as
sustaining up to II—V of bar 95, so that it can at most be granted the significance of
an organ-point effect:
I— ♯IV 7—V—I.
I
Here the c3 of bar 93 is explained precisely in terms of ♯ IV & 7. The appearance of just
this tone c3 so close on c ♯ 3 has an irresistible expressive force: the mixture in the first
theme,14 resolved in such a way, turns it into a marvel of color oscillations that seem
to lay bare the innermost atom of the soul. Contemplating such a marvel, I ask: if
music, by its own power, using its own means—and how simple those are here: a IV,
a mixture!—, can do so much, why should it need any support from the word?
14
[Bars 55–56.]
First Movement 43
Why a “music-drama” and the like? Would any word, even one that expressed
the most infinite thing, nevertheless not be more bounded than this altogether
limitless expressive force?! The third-motif e—c ♯ (above V—I) is then found twice
more, each time an octave lower; the first time (bars 95–96) it appears in enlarge-
ment, in which the tones are separated from one another by rests; in the second
case, e1 at first appears to be all that remains, but as meanwhile in bar 98 the repli-
cation of the cadence-seeking bars 16ff. begins, we marvel at how a parting gesture
(the last one) still tenderly reaches across to e1 from the final motivic eighth-note
c ♯ 1! And now, in transformed and disguised abbreviation, the final breath of the
last word:
Fig. 24
A perfectly wonderful monument to Beethoven’s unsurpassable art of elevating the

orthography to the rank of communicator of his ideas is shown by the Autograph
in bar 57: the first two motivic tones (g ♯ 1—a1) of the inner voice he assigns to the
left hand, the last two (b1—c2) to the right—a proof, incidentally, of how he him-
self played the passage—; but so that despite such a distribution no misunderstand-
ing should arise, he draws below (!) the two motivic tones of the left hand a slur,
which separates them clearly from the ensuing tones of the left hand. In addition
he takes the precaution of writing the latter as thirds, as our text shows. Now can
there exist a notation that would bring this motif more clearly to consciousness than
Beethoven’s? And yet, my edition alone is the first that, following the Autograph,
stands up for the rights of the motif, for all editions published up to now, from
the Original Edition to the most recent, have combined with a single slur in the
left hand—obviously only in ignorance of the presence of the motif—four tones
(g ♯ 1—a1—f1—f ♯ 1) that do not at all belong together, and thus, in a way, amalgamated
syllables of two distinct words into a completely meaningless new word.15 In bar
59 too, to the detriment of the motif, all editions have been unfaithful to the
Autograph; for it explicitly shows at the second eighth of the left hand above the
tone e also the tone g ♯, which introduces the motif (g ♯—a—b). Moreover, Beethoven
there has each e of the left hand attacked, so that in just this way the chordal inter-
play of the following bars is educed.—Regarding bar 71, let it be noted that the
Autograph fixes the chord of the right hand with the greatest possible clarity exactly
as it is given in our text. Incomprehensibly, however, some editions present it thus:
or thus: . Unfortunately, even the Gesamtausgabe is among them (but
the Urtext, on the other hand, is correct). Concerning the dots in bars 73–75, see the
above remarks on bars 21–23.—In bar 88 the master notates at the down-
beat, and at the upbeat moreover a dim. It would not be inconceivable that he him-
self erased the first marking in the Original Edition, but I have nevertheless retained
it, since it so aptly clarifies the law of release in keeping with the Autograph. Bar
90 of my text corresponds precisely to the Autograph, a fact I mention here only to
chide a few editions that, in order to avoid the tenth-reach in the right hand, assign
the eighths of the downbeat to the left. But precisely the stretch of a tenth is here an
essential component of the content. In bar 95 the dim. should not appear already at
the third eighth, where it can be found in so many editions.—The writing of bars
101–102 in the Autograph leaves no room whatever for doubt; it is also faithfully
adopted by the Original Edition, while other editions (unfortunately including the
Gesamtausgabe and the Urtext) beam the third eighth in bar 101 together with the
first two, and also commit all manner of inaccuracies in relation to the sign at
the last eighth of the bar and to the slurs in the left hand.
As to the performance of the Reprise, let the following be noted: the imitations of
bars 55–57 should be expressively brought out as such, especially the one in bar 57.
In bar 58, celebrate the return of the major with special coloration, and then, in the
downbeat of bar 59, use the chordally conceived eighths of the bass to summon up
the energy requisite to the ensuing progression in octaves.
Regarding the remainder of the Reprise I refer the reader to the advice concern-
ing the First Part, and thus here proceed immediately to the Coda. I point first to
the cresc. in bar 85, which the player must not contradict by beginning a crescendo
any earlier. In bar 88, all three eighths of the downbeat may freely be played with
only one pedaling; to be convinced of the good effect, the player should just have the
15
The most curious treatment is that of Klindworth, who assigns g ♯1—a1 to the right hand (here even beamed
together with d 2), and, although through this happenstance he needed only to take one more step in order
to recognize the motif in its full shape, he was nevertheless unable to reach the right conclusion, as follows
from the fact that he expressly includes g ♯1—a of the right hand under a single slur with f1—f ♯1 of the left (!).
First Movement 45
courage to sketch into the chordal mass as it is colored by the pedal the second and
third eighths with expressively supported tone; he should not overlook, however,
that that downbeat in this bar contains in a sense the suspension of the so-called
chord of the major seventh, in which the bass A must under all circumstances mani-
fest a greater value than piano writing assigns it. By no means attempt to evade the
tenth-reach in bar 90, however convenient it would be to do so. That the dotted
quarters of bars 92–93 require something of urgency is a product of their meaning,
and not even in bar 94 may the player allow himself to be distracted by the marking
already to slow the tempo to the extent that, as a result, the progression to
the two scale degrees of the next bar, which indeed are solely decisive for the logi-
cal conclusion of the passage (cadence!), would be inhibited or beclouded. In bars
96–98 the connectedness of e2 to c ♯ 2 and then of e1 to c ♯ 1 is to be given expression by
means of .
Second Movement
Lebh aft. M arschm ässig
V ivace all a M a rci a
The second movement, with its march-like character, exhibits three-part

song form, both in the large (first part, Trio in B ♭ major, and repetition of the first
part) and in the small, meaning the individual sections. But what a world the con-
tent uncovers above and beyond this regularity! Its every trait bears the stamp of
genius—could it but please God that such brilliant treatment of content alongside
such standard formal organization became the general norm!
Bar 1ff. The following sketch may serve to dispel the mists that enshroud the thematic
organization of bars 1–8:
46
Fig. 25
As it shows, the voice leading in bars 1–4 is based on a fourth-progression F—C of

the bass, which here, for formal reasons, is to be interpreted as the scale-degree suc-
cession I—IV—V. Here too, as in most cases, it causes a succession of sixths, which,
to be sure, is ornamented and disguised by suspensions: as well as
other motivic detours; a c is thus to be posited in the upper voice at the downbeat
2
of bar 1 as precondition for this voice leading. In bar 3 it would admittedly be clearer
if b ♭1 were also to lie on top, as is the case in bar 2 with c2; but since the task was to
attain the register of b ♭2 , the detour by way of f 2 was all the more propitious because
thereby the stretto-like imitation1 of the bass’s fourth-progression could be incorpo-
rated and at the same time the impending monotony be avoided through the adorn-
ment 5 6 ͡ 7 6 ͡ 7 6.
In bar 4 the fourth-progression of the bass reaches the endpoint C (V), which turns
the b ♭2 of the soprano into a seventh. Regardless of whether thematic generative force
is to be attributed already to the individual suspensions in the preceding bars: d2—c2 ,
g ♭2—f2 , or, more correctly, only to the overall falling line of the fourth-progression in
the bass and to the imitating inner voice in bars 3–4, in any case it is clear that now b ♭2
too must descend; add to this that the logic of scale-degree progression V—I as well
must exact the shortest melodic step, likewise in the falling direction: b ♭2—a2—and
͡
indeed no longer, as in bar 2, in the sense of a mere seventh-suspension (thus as V 7—6 ),
but specifically as negotiation of an actual passing seventh occurring between two
scale degrees (V—I).2 This very case, by the way, is an excellent example of the seventh
as the passing tone coming from the octave, when we see, as here,
Fig. 26
that b ♭2 can also be derived directly from c3. That accordingly, however, the line of
tones actually originating in c3 still requires a further descent up to f 2 as the end-
point of the fifth-progression (as if striving for the root of the harmony) lies in the
very nature of the descending linear progression3 through the fifth.
1
[The tones f 2—e2—d ♭2—c2 in bars 3–4.]
2
[The seventh passes from an elided octave above V. See Counterpoint I, p. 266.]
3
[Knotenpunkt (nodal point), a term sometimes used in these elucidating editions with a meaning identical to
that of Schenker’s term Zug (linear progression), which also appears in these texts.]
Second Movement 49
Fig. 27
In bar 4 the figure at the second and third quarters of the left hand is of thematic
significance; in its conceptual origin an accompaniment in lower sixths to the imi-
tating voice lying above it:
Fig. 28
it fills out in its rhythmic diminution the duration in which b ♭2 sustains as syncopat-
ing half note4 in the high register.
The descending line from b ♭ 2 to f 2 Beethoven distributes into bars 4–5 in
such a way that g 2 falls as accented passing tone onto the downbeat of bar 5; by
this means, he secures, in addition to a certain increase of vitality, an effect on
the downbeat similar to that of the preceding suspensions, and moreover gains
usable space on the upbeat for an immediate linkage to what follows. In fact,
a repetition sets in forthwith at the upbeat5 of bar 5, but not only, as it might
seem, a repetition merely of bars 4–5, but one of bars 1–3 as well, thus a repeti-
tion of the total content thus far. Just this compression exposes what lay fun-
damentally concealed behind those bars, 6 including even the fifth-progression
(see Fig. 27).
In bars 7–8 there follow two more motivic repetitions that subdivide the
fourth-progression, which are presented, as a half cadence develops, on the VI, II,
4
[See Fig. 25, “Fleshing-out,” bar 4.]
5
[The second half of the bar.]
6
[Bars 1–3. The tones (c2)—b ♭1 from those bars are compressed into the two half bars consisting of bar 5
(upbeat) to bar 6 (downbeat).]
and V respectively.7 Even the tonal succession C—A—G in the bass within the
upbeat of bar 8 is to be taken thematically, and only the last tone of the group,
F, already stands outside the motif, so as to lead over to the next bar—that is,
to bar 1.
That we are not faced here with a true modulation to C major but only with a turn
toward the dominant is confirmed by the secunda volta, in which Beethoven has the
tonic follow upon this dominant directly and in a cadential sense. If this succes-
sion is burdened heavily enough already by the voice leading: IIĹĺĺ&Ļ—V, VĹĺĺĻ—I, it
would be doubly burdened if it had in addition to serve as expression of a remodula-
tion. In any case, however, the events in the secunda volta make an almost precipi-
tous impression, under which both the turn to the dominant and the ultimate one
to the tonic can only suffer.
A further word on a few details: the flying octaves of the left hand in bar 1
have not only the task of continuing the dotted (march-like) rhythm as it
is established already at the very first entrance, nor merely that of filling out the
first and second quarters, but moreover that of forming a connection between
the great and the one-line octaves, in whose dual tracks the fourth-progression
of the lower voice is to move in parallel. It is greatly appealing to see how this
purely pianistic solution serves the purpose of saturation of both the overall
sonority and also of the sixth-chords in particular—the former in that the bass
notes are led in the great octave as well, and the latter again through the fact
that the “young” bass notes8 of the one-line octave stay close to the upper voice.
It is precisely the flying octaves that then elicit the arpeggiating figure of the
right hand, so that not only the rhythm is propagated, but at the same time the
arpeggiation as well.
Bar 12ff. As an aid in untangling the unusually intricate relationships of the middle sec-
tion, first of all let the following plan of bars 12–35 be offered:
7
[What is meant here by “half cadence” is explained by the Roman numerals in Fig. 25 (and by the next para-
graph of text): rather debatably, no tonicization is read of the C of bar 8. The “motivic repetitions” are those
bracketed here:
Rather than two more motivic repetitions, it would be clearer to speak of three more (corresponding to the
three scale degrees VI, II, and V).]
8
[Cf. 110, p. 28.]
Fig. 29
At very first glance we recognize the primary motif here and see how, in several entrances,
it strives to fulfill its impulse toward repetition. At a the keys and scale degrees are pre-
sented as they are suggested on first hearing. Let the following be noted: despite the
major third C ♯ in the chord on A, in bars 12–19 we may speak not of an A-major, but only
of an A-minor key, to which alone (as minor triad of the III) the diatony of the main
key F does after all point (see Harmony, §155ff.). In bars 12–14 a bass note A is retained,
although this could seem otherwise from the appearance of the pianistic writing, which
♯ ♯ ♯
also gives expression to the upper-fifth divider A 3—E 3—A 3. The broadened individual
tones of the primary line in bars 12–19 have been as though outfitted by Beethoven with
wings of a new diminution motif,9 but have at the same time—to provide a fitting sup-
port for the larger values—been counterpointed with a more animated bass progression.
In bar 19 the V of the half cadence is reinterpreted in terms of D minor, and it is again a
half-cadential dominant that, in bar 25, likewise undergoes a reinterpretation, indeed an
enharmonic one (C ♯ = D ♭—i.e., D minor ♯ VII7 or V7 = F major ♭VI♭6—5).
At b the result of the first re-evaluation of this initial impression may be seen: the
bass progression in bars 15–19 suggests interpretation as a fourth-progression, thanks
to which, in bars 16 and 17, independent scale degrees can be dispensed with. In bars
19–23 it is again a fifth-progression that at once permits the progression V—I to be
understood as represented only once. Now the tonic, at which we arrive in bar 23, beck-
ons for reinterpretation, and we return here once again to F major. Next, however, in
bar 25, a deceptive cadence is to be understood, and, especially taking the upper voice
into consideration, from bar 26 to bar 33—indeed even to bar 35—only one single scale
degree, specifically the ♭VI. We sense the master’s intention to gain the high position of
f3, and accordingly interpret the long path to it as a kind of gathering of energy before
the plunge through cadences, which then pours forth without letup from bar 35 on.
When we consider the course of the outer voices in bars 26–33, we see how both
of them move out in contrary motion, but how in the process the lower voice already
traverses a full octave in bars 26–30, while the upper voice in the same bars negoti-
ates only the path from the third to the fifth of the chord, which was possible only
because f 2 of bars 26–29 stops and waits until the lower voice has meanwhile arrived
at F1. On the other hand, however, the lower voice, having reached the root D ♭ , does
indeed wait in place from bar 30 to bar 33, until the upper voice picks up and com-
pletes the stretch from a ♭2 to f3.
The higher of the inner voices begins in bar 27 and accompanies the lower voice
continuously in thirds as far as g ♭1 in bar 29. In this tone,10 then, upper voice and
inner voice meet, the former in the upward course, the latter in the downward.
With the ultimate goal f3 in mind, the master now omits the g ♭1 of the inner voice
9
[The arpeggiating figures of the right hand in bars 15 and 17, imitated by the left in bars 16 and 18.]
10
[Meaning G ♭ in the two registers, the one- and the two-line (see Fig. 29).]
Second Movement 53
and lets the upper voice prevail with its g ♭2 , precisely to enable it to continue the
drive into the high register. If at this point a first hearing (see level a in Fig. 29)
allowed the impression to arise of so-and-so many scale degrees, that is part and
parcel of the very technique of passing-tone harmonies, and all that counts in the
end is the judgment rendered by the outer voices and their rapport with the form.
In the upbeat of bar 33 the inner voice moves one more step upward to b ♭2 , with
the result that now, finally, exactly the same situation is reached as in the upbeat
of bar 3!
On the other hand, however, if in bars 26–34 only the ♭ VI alone is to be posited,
several questions press for answers: what is the purpose of a scale-degree progression
like VI—II—V— ♭ VI 5——6 V anyway? What role, in particular, would the ♭ VI play
in it? Perhaps that of a deceptive cadence? Would the ensuing V by itself suffice to
neutralize the deceptive cadence?
If we now concentrate more intensely on these uncertainties, we observe first that
the motivic lines—see c—are almost exclusively carried out in parallel sixths, and
that in the process both the third and the fourth entrances even appear as though in
a stretto manner. This tendency toward stretti may, if desired, even be traced back
to the plan of bars 4–5 of the first part, where the scale-degree progression has the
consequence that the motif is also heard this way:
Fig. 30
—as though a three-note core motif were preceded only by a form of neighboring
tone. And this consideration alone already leads to an additional, still more surpris-
ing result: for then we find—see d—that from bar 12 to bar 22 it is easily possible to
maintain for the sake of the first three entrances the presence of only one chord (A),
if we but stop to consider that the composing out of the fourth-space 5—6—7—8
leads, for any sonority and thus also for our root A, to the following result:
Fig. 31
That in the process a IV and a V are simulated is easily understandable. And this
circumstance in the case before us is in no way altered by the fact that the root of
that chord that simulates the dominant specifically is expressly inserted in the bass
(see bar 19).11 The single harmony A thus posited would give us the possibility of
even hearing in terms of F major, or, more correctly, of remaining in F major, so
that with the root D in bar 23 we would acquire the VI of the main key, for whose
enhancement the preceding III expressly incorporated the tonicizing chromatic C ♯.
But from this it follows in turn that at the fourth quarter of bar 25 the root D ♭
can very easily be interpreted as merely a chromatic passing tone between VI and V
(D and C), in which the accented-passing-tone configuration ĹĺĺĻ12 is explained by
the imperative of avoiding the parallel fifths that would otherwise result from the
succession VI— ♭ VI ♭5: .
And now at last the final riddles of the conception are solved and we literally
see—compare the illustration at e—where and how the mystic marvel of the organic
has unfolded: thus even in such a form, in such enlargement, the fourth-progression
of the bass (bars 1–4) still comes to life! There, certainly, we understand why in the
secunda volta the master returns in such an abrupt, even apparently summary, fash-
ion to the tonic F; understand further how the pressure of the fourth-progression
as it appears in such larger-than-life dimensions must then precipitate in bar 36 the
answer in accordance with the upper voice of bars 4–5 (now, however, obviously on
an appropriately enlarged scale); and understand finally whence the master obtained
the power to create a passing motion of such scope as that from bar 26 to bar 33! To
anybody whose ear comprehends such stretches as that from bar 11 to bar 33, voice
leading easily makes available sonorities that, while simulating independent mean-
ings, render the highest service only to a primal conception in control above them!
If this is the case, would we then not have to ask why from bar 12 (or more correctly
from bar 11) on we experience nothing but one further repetition of what the first
part offered twice, with prima and secunda volta? Does the middle section, like the
first part, remain in an unchanged F major? And if so, is it still a middle section at
all? To answer these latter questions, it is perhaps necessary to become aware that no
idea can come to life in a naked state; that rather, in the course of coming to life, the
particular rights of actuality, of diminution, of contrapuntal voices, of piano writ-
ing and so forth, have to assert themselves. If, therefore, everything that resonates
through the octaves in such varied garb, articulation and rhythmicization springs
from deep-rooted existential causes, it is nevertheless that individuality which we
face initially as a present moment that beguiles precisely in the act of veiling, and that
is there for the purpose of somehow pushing the ultimate idea into the background.
Bar 36ff. With bar 36 the a2 part begins; as for the two preceding parts, a sketch is provided
for it as well:
11
[See Free Composition, §247.]
12
[See Fig. 29, d. The accented neighbor 2—3 is added to form a three-voice embellishment.]
Fig. 32
In contrast to a1, here we see the fifth-progression appear at the outset, begin-
ning, to be sure, only from B ♭ . To what extent this is to count as answer to the
fourth-progression that so secretly governed the whole middle section has already
been established above. But yet another specific plan is associated with the prece-
dence of the fifth-progression in the a2 part, for now, as befits the formal require-
ments of that part, the last rearrangement is to ensue and the fourth-progression to
be presented in the upper voice, but in a sense that is finally definitive for the cadence.
At first the fifth-progression is repeated no fewer than four times, and in fact in
ever lower registers. The first time we see it in bars 36–37 in the version of bars 4–5,
where c4 is thus to be thought of as merely given in advance (see Fig. 27); the second
time, in bars 37–39, it already appears in complete form with c3.
In the third occurrence the fifth-progression, intended for the one-line octave,
appears in the upbeat of bar 39 with c2 , but is suddenly broken off as early as b ♭1;
immediately afterward, however, the succession b ♭—f enters in the small octave, so
that it sounds at first as though the fifth-progression begun in the one-line octave were
simply to continue in the small octave. Only in bar 42 does it become clear that this
impression rested simply on deception, since rather, from the very outset the b ♭ of the
bass in bar 40 was planned as continuation of the root C (a fifth-progression in the
bass), just as also from the outset a continuation of b ♭1 of the third fifth-progression
was kept in reserve for later—a voice leading that has to do not only with the demand
for variety, but primarily with the scheme involving stretti. For in fact, this ordering
brings—apart from the advantage that by moving forward in the fifth-progression
the root C finds the best way out of the organ-point problem—the additional ben-
efit, which is absolutely invaluable for the synthesis of the a2 part, that the imita-
tions (stretti) strike out into the direction from bass to soprano. Thereby it becomes
possible at last for the fourth-progression f3—c3 to be won in the high register—an
accomplishment of psychological necessity for the master. This occurs in bar 41.
But how differently the fourth-progression appears here than in bar 8! While there,
although in the upper voice, it still strove harmonically for the dominant (as earlier
in the bass in bars 1–4), here it aims toward a different goal as it moves through other
scale degrees, and thus changes its very inner sense as well:
Because the fourth-progression F—C in bars 41–43 incorporates the toniciz-
ing chromatic E ♭ in place of E (I ♭7—IV)—as is always advantageous for the pur-
pose of strengthening such a process—it initially, to be sure, places itself modestly
in the service of the cadence that is finally to bring the period beginning in bar 36
to a conclusion. But since the fifth-progression that immediately connects to it in
bar 43 achieves only half of its length,13 which would thus leave the authentic
cadence imperfect, the fourth-progression again enters the picture in bar 44—now,
13
[See the incomplete lower bracket in Fig. 32.]
Second Movement 57
however, coinciding for the first time with the tonic. After a long battle the goal is
reached, the complete merging of motif and harmony, a kind of transfiguration,
which could as such be celebrated only in the high register.
What now follows is further reinforcement of the triumph and, especially since
the above sketch reports all that is necessary, requires no further explanatory words.
Nevertheless, a few points may be mentioned briefly. In bars 44–48 the organ point
on the I is expressed not by an actually sustaining tone but in an application of a
pianistic idiom through intermittent absence and re-articulation of the root F (see
the first quarter in bar 44, the second quarter in bar 45, etc.). The counterpoint in
bars 44ff. stems from bar 43. The fifth-progression broken off at a2 in bar 44 finds
its conclusion only in bar 52; with it, however, the final word of the a 2 part—thus the
first part of the piece as a whole—is also spoken.
The Autograph gives only the German tempo markings; the Italian markings are first
added in the Original Edition. Beethoven writes in bar 4 an fp at the first quarter, while
the Original Edition shows no dynamic marking at this point; the Gesamtausgabe fol-
lows the Original Edition, as do the Conservatory Edition, Peters, and Reinecke. The
Urtext follows the Autograph; other editions (as d’Albert, Bülow, Schott) write an f,
and Klindworth even defers this until the second quarter. Oddly, in the Autograph the
inner voice in the right hand of the same bar is presented thus: and the
master uses the same notation in bar 6. It may thus be that Beethoven, hearing a ver-
sion closer to the source, felt the need to capture the second-steps e2—d ♭2 and d ♭2—c2 as
though visually in such a way as he heard them arise; but already the Original Edition
substitutes —who knows whether Beethoven merely overlooked this or in the
end approved it? This notation was then retained by all later editions without exception.
The tone a1 in the inner voice of the right hand of bar 5 is written with complete
clarity in the Autograph as a sixteenth, and that the composer intended this value is
even confirmed by a correction which, to be sure, relates only to a clarification of the
first quarter, which had originally appeared less distinct. Inexplicably, however, the
Original Edition had already turned the sixteenth into an eighth (the large num-
ber of arguments presented in 109, 110, and 111 for the superiority of a Beethoven
manuscript in comparison to the Original Edition is here incremented by one),
and it is followed unfortunately by the Gesamtausgabe, Conservatory Edition,
and Peters as well. Originally Beethoven writes c1 in bar 6 at the conclusion of the
fourth-progression as a quarter, but then, as in response to the notation in bar 4,
changes to the one given in my text, which is retained by the Original Edition; but
other editions indulge in notations such as: . In bar 7 Beethoven
applies beams exactly as in the preceding bars, thus a beam for each pair of quarters;
without doubt this notation (confirmed by the Original Edition as well) is visually
more convincing than the other one using only one beam for each quarter, which,
however, is adopted by almost all editions (including the Gesamtausgabe).
It need merely be mentioned that in bar 8 the master writes strokes instead of dots.
But while he himself applies such strokes meaningfully in the bass only to the motivic
tones C A G (likewise the Original Edition), other editions mislead by supplying either
the last three tones A G F (see, for example, the Gesamtausgabe and Urtext, d’Albert,
Conservatory Edition, Reinecke) or even all tones of the left hand with dots, in con-
tradiction to the sense.—In regard to the dynamic marking in bar 15, Autograph and
Original Edition are at odds: the former specifies an f, the latter merely extends the cresc.
with dashes; the editions also differ (the Gesamtausgabe, Bülow, Conservatory Edition,
Klindworth following the Original Edition, the others following the Autograph) on
this point. Autograph and Original Edition are back in agreement, however, in not
applying a legato slur to the fourth quarter of the left hand in bar 15 (but see, to the
contrary, for example d’Albert, Bülow, Klindworth, Schott).—That a notation like
Beethoven’s in bars 23ff. (it was still retained by the Original Edition as well) enjoys by
virtue of its transparency the advantage over the deviations normally encountered may
also merely be mentioned here, as I have repeatedly spoken elsewhere of these matters.
The Autograph shows in the upper voice of bar 25 the following rhythmic form:
. Traces of corrections can moreover be seen at the sixth eighth, but they
can no longer be deciphered; apparently, however, we are dealing here only with an
oversight, and the Original Edition already notates as in my text. With the cresc. dashes
in bars 23–28 I follow the Autograph as well as the Original Edition; but just because of
the events in bar 25, the reminder provided by the cresc. dashes must there have an effect
of greater urgency, in keeping with the content, than the written word cresc. alone in
bar 23; moreover, the intervening instructions, such as are strewn throughout this pas-
sage in so many editions, thus become unnecessary. The slurs in bars 30ff. are written by
the master in the Autograph exactly as in bars 12–13, 23ff.; unfortunately, the Original
Edition already departs from this by applying a slur over the whole upbeat in the right
hand. Other editions go still further and extend the slur over each complete bar; no
doubt they were led astray by the instruction sempre legato, with which, however, the
master’s Autograph marking can very easily be reconciled (see below, performance). In
respect to the slurs of bars 36–37, Autograph and Original Edition show the divergence
that the former places them as seen in my text, while the latter leads the slur [of bar 36]
to the second quarter of bar 37. Merely the chordal setting of the first and second quar-
ters of the right hand in bar 37 must surely have suggested to the master an individual
slur for them, just as immediately afterward, in bar 39, he in turn found it necessary,
because of the dotting of the f2 in the right hand, to extend the slur further than in bars
5, 7, and 37. In presenting the inner voice of bar 43 I follow the Autograph, while already
the Original Edition notates as follows: . Autograph and Original Edition
show a far more important divergence, however, in bars 52 and 53: at the first quarter
of the left hand in each of these bars the Autograph writes (see the score), but the
Original Edition a value. Undoubtedly the rhythm in the Autograph is determined
Second Movement 59
by the compositional idea of providing, in the two bars that precede it, a model for the
rhythm that is indispensable in the cadential bar 54. Was it perhaps the difficulty of the
purely mechanical execution that led the Original Edition to a simplification, or did
the master himself offer a helping hand in eliminating this difficulty? In any case the
original notation is compositionally more logical, while the revision must leave open
the question of why the exact same usage of tying as in bar 9 (or dotting as in bar 11) of
the secunda volta was not applied here as well. All editions follow the Original Edition.
Now to performance. In bar 1 the meaning of the dot on a1 of the third quarter of
the right hand and also the legato slur have for the most part not been understood; the
manner of playing the arpeggiations of the left hand has been applied uncritically also
to the right hand. In rejoinder to this let it be stated that the master (for reasons already
given above) sets f1 as the unbreachable limit for the arpeggiations of the left hand, and
accordingly aims, exactly to the contrary, with the dot and legato in question toward
a segregation of the right hand from the left. To achieve this effect, it is advisable to
impart to the flying octaves of the left hand in the first bar a certain acceleration, but
then—and this is what expresses the segregation—at the dotted a1 of the right hand to
execute a brief hesitation and, in the sense of a modest portamento, even a slight lateral
movement of the wrist. In bars 2 and 3 the situation is different, to be sure; still, even
there the arpeggiations of the right hand must anyway be divided by slight movements
of the wrist if agreement between the actual paths of the voices (see the sketch) and the
hand mechanism is to be achieved in a way consistent with the sense.
In bar 4, give prominence to the motif in the left hand. The compressed man-
ner in which the previous content is taken up in bar 5 is to be expressed by means
of a delicate acceleration, which, however, in keeping with the fourth-progression
of the lower voice, has to begin just at the sixteenth f1 of the second quarter. The
accented-passing-tone character of the sounds at the first and third quarters of
bar 714 demands that regardless of the specified crescendo, the inviolable law of
release must be observed with . In bar 8, group together the octaves of the bass
C A G that belong to the motif, and separate the last one from them.
14
[These sounds take on accented-passing-tone character in the sense that instead of the more neutral form,
a form involving rhythmic displacement is used:]

At the turn of bars 15–16 (and likewise of bars 17–18) the motif that enters here for
the first time15—which, as we know, acts simply as diminution in the service of the
line—must also be given its own appropriate expression with ; but be sure
at the same point not to play the bass’s opposing voice in legato. Though the example
be small, it may nevertheless help to clarify for the player the nature of slurring16 as a
resource that under certain circumstances can also have contrapuntal weight: for if in
an allegorical sense even dynamics must be ascribed a form-organizing power (compare
Ninth Symphony, pp. 10/XIV, 62/41; 109, p. 56), under certain circumstances a dynamic
unification can be well served, as just here in the figuratively contrapuntal sense, by a
separation brought about in the domain of slur articulation by a non-legato—that is,
by independent articulation of the individual tones of the opposing voice. In bar 16 an
“accidental” lingering on d in the bass17 will best effect its continuation with d—c—B.
The trills in the right hand in bars 16 and 18 all have a suffix; it is obvious that their
execution must be only the shortest possible. At the fourth quarter of bar 18, the last
tone of the trill suffix may even coincide with the final sixteenth of the left hand. The
motif in the right hand must, of course, as previously in bar 15, be supplied with a
, except that in keeping with the tie to the next bar, the half note of the upbeat
should then of course receive a still stronger pressure.18 It is not without a certain dif-
ficulty, moreover, in bar 21 also to unite with such performance of the motif (in the left
hand) the suspension release in the right. Execution of the right hand in bars 23–24 is
made more convenient by the fingering I have selected than by any other. Despite the
overall continuing crescendo, between the eighths e2 and f2 of the last quarter of bar 25
a certain retardation must be observed (as is always true in such cases), but the previous
tempo with crescendo must then be resumed immediately. Pay attention to bar 29: the
minor triad on F here is in effect the saddle onto which the crescendo climbs, and from
which the diminuendo recedes. In bar 30 we find the marking for a pedal that is to be
held up to the end of bar 33. This marking is of course not to be taken literally; rather,
it expresses—and this applies, incidentally, to everything comprised by the notation
(compare Ninth Symphony, p. 9/XIII)—only the desire to have the root D ♭ communi-
cated to the ear as appearing to sustain. Such appearance, however, certainly does not
actually entail a continuously depressed pedal, as the effect desired by the composer can
also be produced by appropriate arts of attack. The same applies to the other marking
as well: sempre legato in the same bar, which, considered superficially, appears indeed to
15
[The tone-succession g 2—b ♭2—a 2 . The motif clearly grows out of figures that have preceded, but this is its
first appearance in precisely the form in which it is to be exploited in the coming bars.]
16
[Meaning the contrast between slurring and non-slurring—connection by means of slurs and separation by
their absence.]
17
[No tempo fluctuation is implied by this, only that the finger is to linger on the d key even as the subsequent
note, a, is attacked.]
18
[Stronger, that is, than the analogously placed f 2 of bar 16.]
Second Movement 61
stand in contradiction to the changing articulation marks. It too means that, however
it may be realized, the effect of a legato is to be sought—in the present case, therefore,
regardless of the detailed articulation. The fact that d ♭3 in bar 32 is followed in the suc-
ceeding bar not by e ♭3 but by f3 must cause the player’s hand somehow to stumble, and
it is psychologically quite fitting if, having become suspicious, it makes the leap only
hesitatingly, provided that this happens in an unnoticeable way. The fourth quarter
b ♭2 in bar 33 should be underscored by special attack for the express purpose of suitably
communicating its special significance (see above). In bar 36, despite obvious tremolo
character of the bass, the prescribed number of eighths should not be exceeded (com-
pare, for example, 111, p. 134). Aligning the sixteenths of the right hand immediately
with the eighths of the left conforms to an old performance principle, which can here
be presumed to be familiar. The player should allow utmost rhythmic strictness to pre-
vail beginning in bar 40. As in the performance of dotted rhythms altogether, here too
he should meticulously observe in principle the practice of rhythmically connecting
each sixteenth—in some cases even at the cost of reduction to a thirty-second—to the
subsequent dotted eighth rather than run the risk, in consideration of the preceding
eighth, of a stagnation or stretching of the sixteenth that would necessitate its detach-
ment from the subsequent eighth. Despite the ff specified already in bar 42 (because
of the chromatic tone E ♭), the player should also keep in reserve a crescendo for bar 43,
beginning at the second quarter. The high register of the motif in the left hand in bar
44 demands under all circumstances a rich tone production if the performer is to avoid,
even contrary to his own intention, projecting instead of a dolce effect merely a sotto
voce (e.g., 110, p. 41). In bar 50, secure the sf effect for the second half note through a pre-
mature attack, which, of course, must be compensated by a corresponding broadening
before entrance into bar 51. In executing the fifth-leap of the octaves in bar 54, as with
all similar leaps involving octaves, the keenest focus is necessary on the keys for which
the leap aims: it is almost as though the keys from which the hand leaps away were of no
concern for it whatever; this is how completely the hand must be oriented only toward
the future, toward the goal of the leap, if it is successfully to execute the leap.
The piece (not designated Trio) that is internal to the March is worked out canon- Bars 55ff.
ically, in the key of the lower fifth. The unique beauty and eloquence of the canon
consists, in the first place, in a most brilliant original application of three-part song
form to the canon (a1: bars 55–64; b: bars 65–75; a 2: bars 76–83), which for its pur-
poses is indeed obliged to employ motifs and parallelisms in a manner different
from that in which a canon uses them for its purposes. Here a précis:19
19
[On a slip of paper—one of the innumerable Zettel—in the Oster Memorial Collection, Schenker notates
the right-hand part in bar 59 and remarks on the fourth and seventh eighth notes: Keine harmonische
Bedeutung, also g1 keine Mittelst[imme]! (no harmonic significance, therefore g1 not an inner voice!).]
Fig. 33
Second Movement 63
After the canon is preludized in bars 55–56 with an allusion20 to the opening fig-
uration of the motif, the upper voice, leading, presents the primary motif of the
canon in bars 57–58. We recognize in it (see the large bracket) the fifth-progression
as heard in the March (bars 1–5), although because of the concealment of the start-
ing tones, at first (as in the earlier piece) the impression may predominate of merely
a third-motif (small bracket, compare Fig. 30).
Strictly speaking, the lower voice begins with its imitation already in bar 58 with
f of the right hand, and completes the motif an octave lower in the following bar.
1
In this sense, then, the bass of bars 57–58 represents only a third voice, extraneous
to the two-voice canon; but it was added here, as we learn from the continuation,
less for the purpose of freely accompanying the two-voice canon with a third voice
(which could indeed have entered the picture as an independent technique) than to
deceive initially, in bars 57–59, about the presence of the canon, and thus to achieve
a smoother transition from the free technique of the first piece to the strict one of
an actual canon in the subsequent bars 65ff.
Now in bar 59 a strict canonic treatment would have had to demand in the upper
voice the succession to a tonal series that provided both an appropriate melodic con-
tinuation of the preceding fifth-progression and at the same time a suitable upper
counterpoint. Instead, we see here that Beethoven transposes the free bass from bar
58 into the upper voice, but that it completely loses the characteristic of melodically
continuing the fifth-progression. But whatever melodic purpose could be served by
a continuation like the following: ?
Thus in bar 59 the primary motif is indeed discontinued in the sense of a strict
canon, but on the other hand, from this discontinuation it was possible to reap
new advantages for the higher-ranking concept of the song form that governs the
canon—specifically in the sense that in keeping with its freer laws, transpositions of
the same primary motif to other scale degrees were now made possible. In fact, such
a transposition comes next, in bars 60–64, on the basis of &IV 7—V, whereby the a1
section arrives at a half cadence. But from this it follows that here the strict canonic
form, which is used in bars 60–64 for the composing out of the primary motif in
the sense of the &IV (upper voice leading, lower voice beginning with the imitation
after a half rest), serves not as an end in itself, as the form of an independent content,
but only as a means to apply the process of composing out to the middle of the three
scale degrees (I—&IV♭7—V) that assemble to form an a1 section. And precisely that
is what constitutes the innovative use of the canon for the purposes of song form of
which I spoke at the beginning.
20
[The neighboring-tone figures.]
Bars 65ff. It must not be overlooked that the a1 section does give precedence to the upper
voice throughout, including in bars 57–60, so that on the other hand, under the
given circumstances, the canon is guaranteed at least the appearance of a proper
formal rigor. It is granted a stronger and inner deference, to be sure, only in bar 65, at
the beginning of the b section: here, specifically, since the lower voice takes the lead
in the (strict) canon precisely with that eighth-note figure from bar 59 (58)—which
at that point still could claim no significance for the canon—significance in terms of
the canon as well is restored to it as though retroactively; add to this that it also par-
ticipates in the composing out of the fifth progression (c1—f in the sense of the V),
which increases the significance still more. In bars 65–69 we find the fifth progres-
sions adapted to the V and I degrees. On the way from the V to the I, in bar 67,
the intervening triad of the III is also touched on in passing (see Free Composition,
[§189]). As easy as it would be here in continuation of the third-intervals of bar 66 to
pay respect to this very triad by means of an E in the eighth-note figuration:
Fig. 34
the master was constrained, on account of the E ♭ that is about to sound, to forego
this course. But finding himself thereby obliged to emphasize the minor triad on
D through a substitute means, the leading tone (C ♯—D), he resolutely draws an
advantage from that as well, namely the advantage of a pointer toward the ascending
direction, which in fact henceforth dominates the b section:
Fig. 35
That is the explanation for the apparent newness of the eighth-note motif in bar 67
(68, 69, 70). Incidentally, as the sketch shows, even the figure in bars 70–72,
with its strange rhythmic gesturing, is also a product of relationship with the
primary motif. The ascent within scale degree VI is carried out by means of the
5—6—5—6 technique.
Bars 76ff. In bar 76 the a2 section enters, showing the reversed ordering in comparison to
the a1.
Second Movement 65
With bar 84 the retransition to the first piece begins. First the motif of bars 55–56 Bars 84ff.
is employed, as though fading away, but at once ingeniously and significantly based
on the tone b ♭1, which was still absent in the intervallic arrangement of those bars.
That the I of the B ♭ major key is forthwith reinterpreted in terms of F major as IV
follows immediately from bar 85, which brings the dominant of the new (that is, the
principal) key. The liquidation of the dominant leads in bar 87 to b ♭2 , to which in
bars 88–90 a line of half notes connects, which actually stands for:
Fig. 36
From this it follows first of all that in these bars one cannot yet speak of an organ
point, but next, that the relocation of the inner voice into the upper occurred here
only to gain c3, and with it to pave the way for the fifth-progression. From bar 91
on the root C is certainly then to be understood as an organ point, above which
the V and I appear in alternation. Let us note finally the mixture coloration, which
appears in bar 86 for the purpose of intensifying through its contrast the effect of
the ultimate F major.
That Beethoven wanted the upbeat to the trio, f1 in bar 54, as an eighth-note value
is attested not only by the fact that in the Autograph he notated f1 clearly as a and
the preceding rest (under the fermata) as an eighth rest, but even more by the inner
reason that even in bars 55–56 only an eighth-note value as at a, and not merely a
sixteenth-note value as at b, must be heard:
Fig. 37
Unfortunately, the majority of editions (the Gesamtausgabe, Klindworth, Peters,

Reinecke, Schott) present a sixteenth, and only a few (the Urtext) an eighth.
Bar 55 brings up the question of the repeat signs in bars 55 and 64: Beethoven writes
both of them very clearly and writes in bar 64 no less clearly as final eighth f1,
not e1. When we consider how the a1 section of the first piece was expressly reinforced
through repetition so as to be able to compete in terms of weight with the b and the
a2 sections, we see that the a1 part of the trio may have appeared to the master also
to require repetition in order to avoid the impression of an all too hasty acquittal.
Strangely, the Original Edition gives only one of the two repeat signs, the first one,
in bar 55; in bar 64, following the Autograph, it does present the f1, but not the
second repeat sign. It may well never be possible to explain how this omission could
have been allowed to stand in the Original Edition, and by whom in particular e1
was introduced in place of the f1 shown by Autograph and Original Edition in agree-
ment. Finding no help in the Original Edition, I had to decide reasonably to follow
the Autograph, which in any case is followed by the Original Edition with respect
to the first repeat sign and the f1. The editions without exception present the trio
without repeat signs, but differ in respect to the last eighth in bar 64 (f1 in Bülow,
Conservatory Edition, Klindworth, Peters., Schott, etc; e1 in the Gesamtausgabe,
Urtext, d’Albert, Reinecke, etc.). In bar 55 I adhere to Beethoven’s orthography also
by stemming the notes downward (as inner voice).
The slur articulation in bars 60ff. is not consistently applied throughout, and all
that can be inferred from the sparsely added slurs is that by contrast to the slurs over
the complete bars 57, 58, and 59, and afterward bars 65 [and] 66, they are meant in
each case to extend over only a half bar. From bar 67 on the Autograph shows no
further slur articulation whatever. Given the infinite confusion about the concept
of a slur articulation it was only to be expected that the editions would show all
manner of excesses in these bars, as is in fact the case; the ones that fare best on this
point are the Gesamtausgabe and Urtext.
In bar 70 Beethoven adds a cresc. to each voice and spares no effort to extend
both crescendi expressly with dashes into bar 75, here finally to reverse them by
means of a dim. again notated for each voice. These instructions are found fully
reproduced in the Original Edition as well, while the later editions write only one
crescendo, and that without extension dashes, and one diminuendo, but even place
the latter, nonsensically and arbitrarily, in bar 76, where it can no longer have any
point. Unfortunately, the Gesamtausgabe and Urtext also commit this error. The
Autograph shows the slurs in bars 91ff. in a completely confused state; here the only
avail was to apply the principles that I explained earlier regarding bars 36ff.
When Bülow comments on the performance of the Trio on p. 8 a that “anybody
who sees in this canon only an imaginative mathematical combination but can
develop no enthusiasm for the melodic attraction of its lovely arabesques would
do well to forego playing it altogether,” these words apply only to himself: the
“melodic attraction,” the “lovely arabesques,” were unable to protect him too, as his
edition shows, from serious violations of the content. In keeping with their affin-
ity, the two bars 57–58 should be bound together on a dynamic basis, perhaps with
Second Movement 67
, then similarly later in all analogous passages as well. It makes a

bad effect if in bar 59 (and also in bar 69) the left hand releases the final eighth before
the first eighth of the subsequent bar has sounded. Even if that final eighth should
in addition be actually held for its full value, such a manner of playing nevertheless
inevitably produces the definitely unwanted effect as though the player, under the
influence of the coming rest, had too hastily foreshortened—the effect, then, of a
sonic gap, a rest before the rest, so to speak. Thus we see once again in this example
how what is decisive for the effects in performance, far more than all metronomic
accuracy, are those innumerable highlights and imponderables which, because they
derive from the content and are thus everywhere different in nature, are so difficult
to capture in rules. Alas, scarcely a single virtuoso of the present time—to say noth-
ing of average performers—has any notion of what wonders occur in that world of
light-play, in which it is above all these wonders alone which decide so mysteriously
concerning basic tempo, tempo changes, attack, pressure, and so forth.
In bars 60–63 (and likewise in the analogous bars 79ff.) it is certainly the dot-
ted quarters that need to be emphasized by a pressure, and the eighths accordingly
treated only as upbeats to the pressure points. It is nonetheless possible, however, in
bars 60–63 to perform the motif, despite the crescendo prescribed (in bar 60), thus:
. In performing bars 70–72, the player should be guided by the basic
construction, and accordingly emphasize especially the succession 5—6—5—6: it
alone will then enable his hand to produce the thirty-seconds without any stiffness
of the wrist. In bars 76–78 it is difficult for the left hand to avoid sonic gaps in cross-
ing among the different positions and different registers; only application of that
dynamic binder already mentioned in connection with bars 57
and 58, together with a somewhat raised position of the wrist in general, will lead to
seamless connections and to that interplay of light and shadow so indispensable for
the motif. The trill in the right hand here must begin with the principal tone, since
above all the g ♭1 and f1 that preceded in the lower voice now want to be answered
in the upper voice as well. Bülow’s instruction is thus wrong: “the editor begins the
trill here too with the neighboring tone g, while thinking of the preceding g ♭ as
enharmonically transformed into f ♯. The execution: would have a
somewhat dry quality.” The trill suffix, however, can certainly be omitted. The half
notes in bars 88–90 are to be played in non-legato.
Third Movement
L a ngsa m und sehnsuchtsvoll
A dagio, m a non troppo, con affetto
The piece that appears as the Adagio of the sonata is to be interpreted only as
an introduction to the final Allegro movement. As content it has once again the
basic theme of the first movement, bars 1–2, presented in a rhythmic form of utmost
breadth—in a rhythmic metaphor of the longing felt by two souls that are most
closely and intimately bound but still are far apart. The following illustration shows
the paths Beethoven’s imagination followed:
68
Fig. 38-1
Fig. 38-2
To anybody who on looking into these concealed worlds should ask, out of either
discomfiture or skepticism, whether the master himself had full “knowledge” of the
paths, I gladly take the opportunity provided by the piece at hand to reply: Yes. Just
as dimness and brightness are opposites, so also the dim and the bright person. So
long as the dim person lacks the knowledge that the bright alone possesses, thus
is not enlightened to an equal extent, of what use is it for him to try to force entry
into the puzzle’s solution through the portal of a common word and concept, as
in this case the word “knowledge”? If the dim person speaks of “knowledge,” then
for the bright, just to distinguish him from the dim, a new word would have to be
expressly coined, since “knowledge” is so far from the same thing for the two of
them. But the dim person can nearly form a picture of the knowledge of the other
if he examines his own experience in areas in which he himself is also bright. And
so let him ask himself what goes on within him when he writes or speaks: has he
at all times a “knowledge” of the words that he combines into sentences, or not?
Certainly—otherwise how could it happen that they carried conscious purpose,
manifested this or that form? And that the knowledge of the spoken or written
Third Movement 71
words is ever present in him, he must likewise concede, however difficult it may
be for him to understand how logic manages to keep pace with the headlong rush
of the words. And now let him apply this experience to the knowledge of tones
in a genius like Beethoven and he will at least form a notion of what he—himself
condemned to dimness in this area—will of course never completely understand.
At level a the picture is shown of the primordial tonal succession; it is the [first
movement’s] first theme made minor, rising from g ♯ 1 to d2 and falling from d2 to b1.
From the first moment, tone after tone stands thus mysteriously divined before the
master’s imagination; but it takes so long—oh, so very long—for the one tone to
reach the other. A veritable portrait of longing.
The master’s diminution clairvoyance now begins the work first of all—see
b—with distribution of the tones of the rising direction into two three-tone divi-
sions, of which the first is to present the tone b1, the second c2 as ultimate products.
This distribution now results on the one hand in the deferment of the arrival of
c2—exactly this deferment gives poignant expression to what I meant to say above
with the image of longing—, but on the other hand it also leads to a similar distri-
bution in the case of the falling tones as well, to avoid a shift of weight entirely to
the side of the rising tones. (Anybody familiar with the art of language will recog-
nize such an equilibrium technique as an essentially related trait.) But it is merely
a consequence of the smaller inventory of descending tones that their distribution
had to lead finally only to a repetition, and if the latter is moreover augmented by
insertion of e2 , that happens only so that what is fundamentally stated already by
the third-series d2—b1 can be expressed still more emphatically by means of the
fourth-progression e2—b1.
Now the harmonic sense faces the task of averting monotony of the harmonies
(scale degrees) as they come, seemingly on their own, to be composed out in the
first two divisions. If, as here, c2 is preceded by b1, it was of course very natural
to use the occasion of this succession as a leading-tone step and to interpret c2 in
terms of a C triad, as a III of the principal key. This triad presupposes, to be sure,
that the earlier g ♯ 2 be displaced by a g1. If this happens, as can be seen at c, through
insertion of g1 before a1, a strong fourth-progression g1—c2 is thereby won, and
moreover with the meaning of VII—III, which indeed helps to support expression
of the tonality.
The material thereby procured admits of still richer increase by the diminution,
when it proceeds in the course of fragmentation as it has thus far. The result is shown
at d, where we see also how much further from one another than in c the endpoints
of the first and second divisions, b1 and c2 , thereby proceed. If e1 is added at the
beginning, its purpose is to achieve a three-tone entity, and if the second division
eschews application of diminution in exactly the same way as the first:
Fig. 39
and instead a tonal series placed a third higher is presented, that is only to avoid an
exact repetition of the same series.
The falling direction, on the contrary, admits no further diminution, since the
integrity of the fourth-progression had to be maintained.
One further step and the imagination is ready to step over into reality, which,
in Art, admittedly never ceases to remain a mirror image of that primordial tonal
world: the master’s imagination now deliberately submits to the constraint—and
this again is a feature well known to connoisseurs of language—of presenting each
initial subdivision, e1—a1, b1—d2 , and e2—b1, in a more expanded time frame than
the second—thus the first step more reflective and the second more propulsive, as
though more hesitating in the preparation and more urgent in the fulfillment. This
secret rhythm of events is now actually the decisive pulse beat of our piece.
At e, then, everything can be listened to that the diminution imagination achieves
as preliminary work before commencing its final task, and we may finally turn our
attention to the last polishing, which brings the “melody,” the melismas.
In bars 1–2, because of the fourth-progression e1—a1 in the upper voice,
V—I—V—I is to be understood as simply V—I.1 In bar 3 the line rests, in fact in
the tone a1; meanwhile, however, two motivic replicas arise in the inner voices in
more accelerated rhythm; their express purpose is to impel the principal line as well
to an acceleration (see above) at the decisive core subdivision. How organically the
master’s imagination takes control at this point! It is, then, only a red herring that
the first of the replications appears above the principal line as an upper voice in
the finished product, when in fact it belongs to an inner voice. In relation to the
principal line, the penultimate sixteenth of the bar, b ♭1, represents merely a neigh-
boring tone, which here—leaving aside the force of the second motivic replica-
tion (b ♭—c1—d1) as generating factor in the strictest sense—suggested itself also
because it enters into a sixth-relationship with the bass and thus enables a leading
of the outer voices in sixths (see Free Composition, [§225]). Inevitably, the effect of
a ♭II (Phrygian; see Harmony, p. 109/143) as well is associated finally with b ♭1. In
bar 4, then, the V arrives, and above it the first division of the Urlinie reaches its
end, specifically, in accelerated rhythmic values. The V here virtually appears—if
the preceding chords are provisionally to be granted scale-degree character—with
the effect of a half cadence; but if the ear gives itself over to the impression of the
1
[Compare, in Chapter 2, the discussion of bars 19–23 of the second movement.]
Third Movement 73
totality of the voice leading of the two outer voices—in the lower voice the dimin-
ished fifth from G ♯ upward to d and downward from d to G ♯ , in the upper voice the
fifth from e1 to b1—, it comprehends, as though hearing backward, all chord succes-
sions only as products of a voice leading that merely stands in the service of the V.
In bars 5 and 6 Beethoven’s finished product manifests several modifications in
comparison to the draft, which, however, should not be allowed to mislead concern-
ing the true state of affairs. Thus the bass shows a traversal of the path downward
from E to G, whose motivation clearly came from bars 3 and 4. This parallelism,
incidentally, would have presented itself to us still more distinctly if in bar 5 the first
eighth had been omitted, and in the upbeat of bar 4 instead of E the tone G ♯ had
appeared (sixth-chord position). In that case, from the comparison of:
Fig. 40
it would have been more easily comprehensible how actually only an alternation of
G ♯ and G (the latter in the sense of a &VII) was intended, and how the first eighth
♯
E is included only to avoid any harshness in connecting from the V 3 to the &VII. In
bar 6, f 2 appears for d2 simply by an act of substitution.2 Again as in bars 1–4, how-
ever, the impression created by the outer voices suggests the derivation of all voice
leading in bars 5–6 simply from the &VII—descending linear progression through
the fifth in the lower voice, in the treble the motion from the third to the fifth of
the chord—, so that the chords, which otherwise would have to signify a modula-
tion to C major, and in this key, in turn, the succession V—I—IV—V, are to be
assessed only as products of that voice leading. The leaps that the upper voice uses
in these bars in order to scatter across various registers the line that moves ahead
by second-step merely continue the impetus given by the sixth-leap in the last two
sixteenths of bar 1. In bar 7 the event of bars 5–6 is repeated with a sustaining root,
now already presented clearly with D as the final tone,3 and in accelerated move-
ment, which has the same purpose as that in bar 3.
Next, the bass moves ahead in order to complete the fifth-progression to the root
of the III, while in the middle of the course, above E of the bass at the beginning of
bar 8, the upper voice enters with g1 so as now to accelerate the fourth-progression to
c2 (see Fig. 38, c and d). It is precisely the tone g1 that first imparts complete clarity to
the horizontal treatment of the upper voice in bars 5–8 by supplying, after the fact,
2
[Vertretung. See Free Composition, §§145–146, 235.]
3
[The previous substitution of F for D is not repeated.]
both the root for the tone-succession B—C—D in bars 5–6 and at the same time
the beginning of the fourth-progression.
Now, from bar 9 on, it is the falling line’s turn. The finished product shows in bars
9–11 first of all the use of the motif of bars 1–2 in an imitative manner; thereby a con-
sequent effect is achieved, especially as the harmony takes that of bar 8 as its point of
departure. In particular, though, the imitations aim toward the goal of introducing
the register of e3 (see the last sixteenth in bar 10, and then bars 12ff.), which, however,
from a purely sonic standpoint, still of course relates to f 3 of bar 6—another example
of obligatory handling of the registers, to which I have often already pointed. After
this register is reached, the motif is now once again subjected to imitation, in a form
abbreviated to half the original length. In bar 12 the bass c is expressed in a type of
piano writing that is otherwise unusual for Beethoven, namely by means of a short
appoggiatura. Here the lower voice is set into motion through passing tones, and
from bar 14 on the upper voice as well; and by passing through chromatically in such
a way, the two outer voices produce alternating diminished fifths and augmented
fourths. The goal of the migration is reached in bar 17, where the lower voice lands
on the root E and the upper voice on the fifth of the triad, b1. With the former tone
the line 6—5—4—3—2—1, a product of inversion, reaches its conclusion within the
V ♯ scale degree, and with the latter the fourth-progression 8—7—6—5 comes to an
end.4 If we subtract the chromatic passing tones, the course of the Urlinie becomes
apparent in broader time values:
Fig. 41
This broader course then evokes in bars 17ff. the acceleration mentioned earlier.5 In
bars 19–20 the appearance of g ♯ 1 for b1 is merely a result of substitution.6 Above g ♯ 1,
to which now the quotation, in the following bars, of bars 1–4 of the first movement
is to connect, Beethoven places a fermata, which he himself composes out. It is as
though all registers of the piano, from the great octave up to the two-line, are called
upon to bear witness to the presence of the tone G ♯ . The rhythmic subdivision of the
arpeggiation is to be understood as follows:
4
[Both numerical successions relate to the root of the goal harmony, V.]
5
[See above, p. 72.]
6
[See note 2.]
Third Movement 75
Fig. 42
The rationale is this: first, the fourfold application of quintuplet grouping defines

the first four figures as four quarters of a first bar filled out with similarly uniform
motion. This is followed, obviously to intensify the motion, by two sextolets as the
first and second quarters of a second bar; their assemblage from two triplets each
cannot fail to be recognized. The remainder of eighth eighths, expressing increased
movement anew, yields the third quarter and must be internally subdivided into 3 + 5,
or more accurately 3 + 2 + 3 eighths. That a triplet is to be assumed at the beginning
of this group follows automatically from the preceding; but the reason the follow-
ing five tones are to be divided into 2 + 3 and not rather into 3 + 2 is to be sought
in the fact that only with the first ordering can a more natural transition be gained
to the sixteenths subdivided into 3 + 3 + 3 of the third quarter. With 3 + 2, at the
connection of the third to the fourth quarter the unpleasant stumbling block of a
duple ordering would be flung into the midst of the triplet motion. A further reason
for this division is that, as I already noted above, the tone G ♯ thereby gains a leading
significance within the overall arpeggiation. The result is now a picture of a rate of
movement growing from four quintuplets through two sextolets up to units of eight
and nine tones. Along with such a rhythmic course, however, the arpeggiation truly
derives its spice only from the rhythmic placement of the principal tone G ♯: we see,
specifically, how g ♯ 2 , to which Beethoven expressly points with ,
falls, precisely according to my metric subdivision, on the second, thus on a weak,
quarter of the second bar, and then similarly g ♯ 1 in turn on the weak midpoint of
the third quarter. But exactly this is an advantage of my division; it corresponds
to the practice of good masters who, as a rule in arpeggios and composing out of
this kind, prefer to place the principal tones in a given situation in a similar way on
weak metric positions. Emphasized by internal forces but metrically unaccented,
they act there in a more appealing and impressive way than when, for the sake of
their importance, they are at the same time metrically emphasized. (Related to this,
incidentally, is the psychological law of the accented dissonance.7) With the motion
in eighths and sixteenths arrived at in the third and fourth quarters, both of which
7
[Gesetz des Vorhalts, including suspensions with either conventional or indirect preparation, accented pass-
ing tones, and accented neighbors.]
are based on the principle of three, Beethoven now leads in a logical way to 68 time
as a composite of 3 + 3. In this rhythm, then, the quotation of bars 1–4 of the first
movement comes about.
If the musician has grasped the identity of the motif in the Adagio and first move-
ment, he may well find this quotation as well completely natural, even if he disre-
gards additional psychological-programmatic reasons that may perhaps also have
influenced the master here. In truth, even the very inspiration may be program-
matic, so long as its realization doesn’t encroach on musical art; but the perform-
ing musician is never permitted to let the quest for programmatic elements distract
his attention from musical considerations any more than the composer—assuming
that he, like Beethoven himself, was a master—ever neglected the latter in favor of
the former. I therefore gladly leave the unproductive riddle-solving to others, who,
because they otherwise have nothing to offer, are obliged to engage in that activity
straightaway. (The cases, however, in which a great master has acknowledged his
own programmatic inspiration are in any event few in number, and, as they are then
no longer riddles, have no place here at all.) I thus resume the path of purely musical
exegesis.
The motivic connection between Adagio and quotation even produces the result
in bar 20, with the fully realized dominant, of an antecedent, in comparison to
which the quotation is practically resolved to take on the character of a consequent.
But exactly at the point in which the consequent began in the first movement (bar 5),
a fermata suddenly brings the quotation to a halt: its purpose is to give notice of a
change of mind on the part of the composer. How this fits in from the program-
matic standpoint, as stated earlier, cannot be determined; its purely musical aim, on
the other hand, can be described all the more definitely. An overview of the motivic
endings in bars 22, 24, 28, [and] 32, and bar 1 of the Allegro, will provide us the solu-
tion to this puzzle:
Fig. 43
From this picture it can be gathered that the last formation under c provides an
answer to the first two under a and b, which bog down in the dominant and dif-
fer from one another only in modification of the interval involved (the third-leap
at a replaced by a second-step at b). The response character is expressed above all
through the harmonic progression V—I, and thus the formation at c is not only
Third Movement 77
the resolution of the two preceding half-cadence formations, but, far more, the sign
even of the answer provided in general by the last movement of the sonata to the
first, specifically since the formations under a and b, as quotations of the first move-
ment,8 may now be understood directly in the sense of pars pro toto [the part stand-
ing for the whole].
Now finally an account of the organization of bars 25–32 in particular: in bar
25 the second formation, see b) in Fig. 43, is asserted once again, as though it still
would not willingly step aside after the fermata. Now determined to break free,
Beethoven seeks with a stringendo- and crescendo-gesture to take by storm the
still reverberant region of the three-line octave (the e3), so as to compel liberation
from on high with the power thereby gathered. The path that takes him there leads
through the triad F ♯—A—C ♯ , which is yielded as the sum of the threefold repeti-
tion of the motif:9
Fig. 44
Actually, however, the complete triad here stands for the tone f ♯ 2 alone, and just
as that tone counts merely as a neighboring tone between the e of bar 25 and
the e3 of bar 28, the arpeggiated chord F ♯—A—C ♯ , partaking as a totality of the
neighboring-tone character of the generating F ♯ , functions similarly only as a
neighboring-tone harmony. With the leaps of the left hand at the beginning of the
Allegro in bars 29–30, then, the movement’s basic rhythmic cell is introduced, and
along with it at the same time the tempo of the Allegro is announced. On the arrival
of the third-leap e3—c ♯ 3, which concludes the formation under c), the last movement
can finally begin.
8
[Formation a quotes bar 2 of the first movement, formation b bar 4.]
9
[As Fig. 43b shows, it is the descending step c ♯2—b1 rather than the apex e2 that stands in the forefront of bars
24 and 25. The parallel figures in bars 26 and 27 surely must be read in an analogous way, to yield the following:
This interpretation, incidentally, is entirely compatible with Fig. 43, and shows merely a linear connection
between its parts b and c.]
In the Autograph the German tempo marking is not yet present. Beethoven
notates the upbeat figure in bar 2 as follows: (and likewise in bars 9, 10, 11,
12), and the Original Edition follows this notation; many later editors notate the
beams differently, indeed as follows: . In a purely optical way, then, the for-
mer notation, with the continuous sixteenth-note beaming, reflects the inner unity
of the figure; but in the latter—such a disagreement between image and essence!
What is the eighth-note beam supposed to mean? Such disinclination and incompe-
tence for the visual representation of a tonal conception! That Beethoven writes in
the upbeat of bar 4 only great E, and does not add the lower octave, the contra E, as
well, has to do with the obligatory handling of the registers already mentioned here
on several occasions, which, because of the great C to come in bar 8, did not permit
him a contra E in bar 4: just because both of them are decisive roots, they had to
be balanced against each other in terms of register as well. Some editors show the
contra E in brackets (d’Albert, Conservatory Edition, Reinecke), while others, e.g.,
Bülow, Klindworth, Peters, Schott, also without brackets. To think that the editors
have no notion of how, through such apparently innocent personal intrusions, they
simply cheat the reader’s or performer’s ear out of the profound culture of register
treatment!
As always in such and similar cases, in bar 7 the master writes the right hand in the
lower system for the sake of clarity; but how far superior this notation is from both
the conceptual and the practical standpoint can be seen best by comparing editions
(e.g., Bülow, Conservatory Edition, Klindworth, etc.) that displace the tonal succes-
sion in question into the upper system. In bar 12 Beethoven notates the appoggiatura
in the left hand as a thirty-second (but only the Original Edition and the Urtext
follow him); the extent to which Beethoven’s notation, which had been Haydn’s
and Mozart’s as well, deserves preference over the later notation using: , with its
insouciance regarding distinctions of expression and note values, I have discussed in
Ornamentation, p.70/pp. 33–34. In bars 14, 15, [and] 16 the master expressly enters a
pedal marking at the fourth eighth in order to prevent the tones d ♯ 2 , c ♯ 2 , [and] b1 of
the right hand from falling into a cold sonic void after withdrawal of the finger from
the third eighth of the bass. The original notation is followed only by the Original
Edition and Urtext, with most other editions placing the pedal marking as soon as
the third eighth—which, however, is not at all the same thing. As to whether it was
Beethoven himself who changed the originally written in bar
19, as the Autograph shows, into a crescendo - - - p, as given in the Original Edition,
I can of course provide no clarification; in this case it seemed advisable to follow the
Original Edition, since its dynamic instruction binds together the two bars 19 and 20,
while the notation in the Autograph is naturally restricted to bar 19 alone. In writ-
ing the last sixteenth of the inner voice played by the left hand in the bass system
Third Movement 79
along with the rest, Beethoven again follows the high commandment of transpar-
ency; unfortunately, he found no company in this except by the Original Edition. In
the presentation of bar 20 I adhere to the Autograph, in which only the instruction
nach und nach mehrere Saiten [gradually add strings] is still lacking. It is important
to note that Beethoven has the second pedaling of the bar and the cresc. instruction
as well as a new beaming (starting precisely on g ♯ 1)10 coincide exactly at g ♯ 1, all of
which underscores the importance of this tone. Most editions, however, lack either
a tie between the first two g ♯ 1’s or a correct beaming or both. Bülow complies, at
least in his text, with the usual notation, but betrays through his annotation (see
below) how completely differently and wrongly at the core he conceived the sense of
the arpeggiation. Klindworth, however, goes further still and even changes the note
values in the text:
Fig. 45
At the transition into bar 21 Beethoven, even despite the new key signature,
writes—certainly with consciousness and intent—no [double] bar line.11 In bar
24, exactly as in bar 4 of the first movement, there is no tie between the two e2’s;
the tie is, however, present in the Original Edition. Can it truly be mere coinci-
dence that the Autograph shows no ties even in bars 25–26 as well? It seems to me
rather that Beethoven’s original notation—assuming, of course, that one grants
the authenticity of the one in bar 4—has a real purpose, so that I can scarcely
10
[The new beaming is present in the Autograph only.]
11
[The Original Edition does already show the double bar line.]
imagine him only later to have arrived at a better one for all these places and to
have subsequently added the ties himself to the Original Edition. It would in that
case be inexplicable in particular how, having somehow recognized after the fact
the importance of the ties, he could have overlooked the absence of any such in
bar 4 of the first movement in the Original Edition. In bar 28 with the fermatas,
the Autograph lacks the short appoggiatura d ♯ 2 preceding the last trill on e2 that,
however, is given by the Original Edition; now it would be conceivable that the
master himself ordered it, in fact to indicate the turning point. That editions exist
which write a in place of the sixteenth-note appoggiatura is scarcely remark-
able; it is certainly more surprising, however, that some editions present an f ♯ 2
before e2 .
As to performance: The figure at the second quarter of the right hand in bar 1,
which can easily be recognized as a representing a turn with connecting sixth-leap,
can best be executed in its meaning as a written-out turn with “languid” expression,
as C. P. E. Bach calls it (Ornamentation, p. 92/46), by use of the fingering I have
suggested, in which the second finger glides off d ♯ 1 onto e1—all of this presupposes,
to be sure, that the hand first, in order to reach d ♯ 1, execute a light, similarly languid
forward motion into the keyboard. With such a “pictorial” gesture of the hand, the
“languid expression” required here can be achieved far more reliably than by use
of the fingering 2 3 2. At the beginning of bar 3, don’t fail to express the suspen-
sion formation with a . Broaden a bit with the mixture involving the third,
♯

g —g , in bar 4, and don’t hesitate to use the second finger, as I recommend, even
1 1
three times in succession, as especially the gliding of the second finger from g ♯ 1 onto
g1 manupictorially clarifies the downward adjustment from the major third to the
minor. In bars 5–6 the prescribed legato should present no obstacle to letting oneself
be guided at the same time by awareness of the leaps (see above); for only through
their expression can it be made apparent how the imagination here seems to change
its position three times in order to arrive at an ever higher tonal region. But also at
this point, after a hesitant groping at the beginning of bar 5, introduce by means of
a cautiously restrained crescendo beginning at about the upbeat of the same bar a
certain movement, a certain drive, which, however, if there is to be no contradiction
of the meaning of the passage in general, must never present itself as completely sure
of its path. Apply sufficient pressure to f3 in the upbeat of bar 6 to be able to trail off
into a ; the shadow that thus arises then provides a perfectly physical repli-
cation of sinking into the depths. In bar 7, to illuminate the succession b—c ♯ 1—d1
in comparison to a purely diatonic b—c1—d1 that would have also been possible,
play c ♯ 1 with a distinct pressure.
In bars 9ff., retain, at least for execution of the written-out turn, the same move-
ment of the hand that was recommended for bar 1, even if an exact similarity of
Third Movement 81
execution is (as from bar 12 on) impossible and, incidentally, because of the gradual
change of meaning, unnecessary. Beginning in bar 12 a certain pressure must repeat-
edly be applied to the upbeat in the right hand, especially from bar 14 on, where the
suspension formations appear; here the pressure provides the most natural basis for
execution of the release. If moreover, by reason precisely of the suspension resolution
and the associated , one has hesitated slightly on the first sixteenth of each
respective upbeat, and in turn accelerated (but only as though by reflex [compare
110, p. 28]) the falling octave, one has thus most fully realized the composer’s intent
to proceed henceforth on the tracks of two octaves simultaneously; otherwise, if this
direction be disregarded, a harshness in the connection of the two registers would
intrude that would necessarily make the impression that the octave leap were itself
motivic in nature. (These performance instructions too belong to the wonder realm
of the highlights and imponderables of which I have already spoken so often.) The
pedal, to which the grace notes of the bass in bars 12, 13, [and] 14 are to be entrusted,
may with appropriately soft attack be held down scarcely longer than through the
first eighth. In bar 15 (and similarly in bar 16), the grace notes should coincide with
the first tone of the right hand’s arpeggio and the first sixteenth of the left hand
with the first eighth of the right, resulting in alignment both of the tones in small
notation and of the initial tones for right and left hands in large notation. The com-
ment that Bülow adds to this passage (p. 10 b) shows the complete unproductiveness
of such and similar pronouncements:
The relationship of this and the next bars to the melismas of the profound
organ point at the conclusion of the Chromatic Fantasy by J. S. Bach may lead
to a comparison from which profit can be drawn for the performance of both
works. Here, where the impression of a dream-like improvisation is to be pro-
duced, an expansive tempo rubato is surely permissible.
In bar 17 a pressure should be applied not already to the first eighth of the right hand
but (because of the tie) to the second. In the subsequent bar 18, the pressure rela-
tionships are, to be sure, more difficult: since the first eighth of the right hand has
a suspension character, it above all takes a stronger pressure; but since on the other
hand the second eighth, d1, the tone of resolution, itself in turn becomes suspended,
a still deeper shadowing must be applied at the c2 which finally does bring the
resolution. To achieve such a shadowing, however, the player should use a suitable
pressure—this incidentally is again an example of the highlighting technique—at
the first sixteenth of the second quarter of the left hand! In bar 19 the prescribed
cresc. should begin actually only from the fourth sixteenth of the left hand, so that
it can then be carried through all the more forcefully given the participation of the
right hand as well.
I recommend performance of the fermata figure with the internal articulation
presented above (Fig. 42); a certain pressure should in the process be applied to both
g ♯ 2 at the second quarter of the second bar and g ♯ 1 at the third quarter, which obvi-
ously should be coordinated with a scarcely noticeable prolonging. In such a way the
hand appears as though clairvoyantly to mark the G ♯ tones as nodal points within
the pulsating chord. Bülow recommends for the arpeggiation the following subdivi-
sion (p. 10 c):
Non presto—that at the same time specifies also non lento. If we assume for
the preceding bar a moderate broadening (approximately = 54), then while
it remains in effect, the following rhythmic subdivision of the cadenza will
prove suitable:
Fig. 46
This subdivision contradicts the original one, which shows logic in the increase of
movement through the nonlogical leap from the number 6 to the number 11 (3 + 4 + 4),
and moreover deprives the g ♯ 1 (at the third quarter of the second bar) of its significance,
since it is countered by another g ♯ at the beginning of the fourth quarter.
Beethoven’s performance instruction for bars 21ff.: Zeitmaß des ersten Stückes,
Tempo del primo pezzo; tutto il Cembalo ma piano [Tempo of the first movement
(the same in Italian), full keyboard but piano], confirms most propitiously the
Third Movement 83
above exposition of the relationships between Adagio, quotation, and last move-
ment. Despite the fact that, in comparison to the una corda of the Adagio, here
in the quotation all strings of the instrument are marshaled (tutto il Cembalo),
both—Adagio as well as quotation—mean to answer the first movement of the
sonata only in the manner of an echo. By no means, then, may the past, taking the
detour by way of motivic and tempo similarity, again arrive at a vital present—what
is past should forever belong in the past (ma piano). The fingering I have given for
the thirty-second-note figure of bar 28 at the presto not only makes arrival at the half
note d2 technically more convenient but also psychologically befits the situation so
much the better as d ♯ and d, through application of the same finger under the cir-
cumstances present here, are at the same time most propitiously expressed as one
and the same tone, which they in reality are.12 Here, however, this identity is also
decisive for the actual sense of the run (compare above, Fig. 43)—indeed, so decisive
that any other grouping than the following:
Fig. 47
must intrinsically contradict it. As confirmation of this, see, for example,

Klindworth’s realization:
Fig. 48
At the first bars of the Allegro the basic tempo must already be definitely and immu-
tably stamped into the player’s sensibilities if it is to serve as guide for the immedi-
ately connecting final movement.
12
[See Counterpoint I, p. 46/68.]
Fourth Movement
Geschw ind, doch nicht zu sehr,
und mit Entschlossenheit
Allegro
The last movement is in sonata form: First Part, bars 1–81; Development, bars
82–199; Reprise with Coda, bar 200 to the end. The reasons that oppose the widely
accepted assumption of an actual fugue in the middle section will be precisely
detailed below; here the simple confirmation will suffice initially that we have before
us a true Development. Let the following sketch of bars 1–81 assist us in revealing
the difficult secrets of the First Part:
84
Fig. 49-1
Fig. 49-2
Fourth Movement 87
Fig. 49-3
The central nerve of the movement, then, is shown to be a counter-play of two

lines, a falling and a rising one, even if these are sometimes hidden behind dimi-
nutions, curtailments, [and] expansions, which at first glance prevent relation-
ships from being recognized. The rapid, indeed nearly precise, pacing of up and
down is reminiscent of the first movement, except that here by contrast the
falling line speaks first. (Whether the opposition is to be attributed to a psy-
chological or a programmatic reason will not be dealt with here.) Meaning and
form are revealed to us only when we have completely assimilated the linear
counter-play:
• The line of the upper voice falls in bars 1–4 and rises in bars 5–8;
• In bars 9–16 as well as in bars 25–33, the inversion entails repetition of the
same ordering in the lower voice;
• Now the upper voice, carrying the line, rises from bar 39 on: in bars 41–44
from b1 first to e2 , then, starting over from b1 in bar 44, pressing ahead
one more tone to f ♯ 2 (a2) in bar 48 (the realization shows an octave trans-
fer, b2—f ♯ 3—a3), after which the line in bars 49–58 answers by falling from
a2 to e2;
• Bars 59–81, however, repeat exactly the same scene: here too the line starts
over with b1 to climb first to e3 in bars 59–70, then, in bars 70–75 (77), like-
wise starting afresh from b1, to f ♯ 3, after which follows the answer by the line
that falls from a1 to e1.
This now yields conclusions about the form as well:

The first theme is defined by the precedence of the falling line and by the inver-
sions; it thus spans bars 1–33, and appears, to the extent that the inversion in bars
25–33 presents itself merely as a repetition and confirmation of the inversion in bars
9–16, to represent rather a two-part song form (antecedent and consequent) than a
three-part, which could be suggested by the interpolated bars 17–24.1
The second theme is distinguished from the first not only by the key of the domi-
nant but also by precedence of the rising line. The rise and fall supplement each
other perfectly in bars 41–58, and the full self-enclosure of the theme is perhaps
diminished only by the fact that the ascent is amalgamated with the modulation,
and in the process, the definiteness of the initial tone b1 in bar 41 is compromised in
a certain way (compare 110, p. 30).
Since bars 59–81 merely repeat the content of bars 41–58, they might be consid-
ered more of a closing theme, although in bar 59, definiteness of the departure point
b1 is reaffirmed (in comparison to bar 41).
Now to the details:
Bar 1ff. The falling line of bars 1–4 resulted from repetition in the small:
Fig. 50
of a motif whose connection to:

Fig. 51
(see above, Fig. 43) is surely too clear to be overlooked, except that it incorporates
the tendency toward a still more expanded scale-degree progression (V—I—V). In
the continuation, the upbeat does of course lose any scale-degree significance and
no longer comes into consideration regarding the line (see the sketch). Similarly, at
the last sixteenth of bars 1, 3, etc., the sixth-relationship to the lower voice becomes
insignificant.2 That the lower voice is imitative, is immediately apparent.
1
[In notes for a planned but never completed treatise on musical form (Oster Collection, New York Public
Library for the Performing Arts, Folder 83), Schenker writes that “three-part song form tends to fall back
into two-part in the case of ‘too’ meager development of the b section.” This first theme is a good example of
such a borderline case. Its interpretation as a three-part form would not be unreasonable.]
2
[That is, it does not effect a 5—6 replacement (a change of harmony).]
Fourth Movement 89
In the ascending progression from bar 5 on, it is notable that the line, which has thus
far moved ahead in half notes, now rises at a doubled rate of speed. Clearly this accelera-
tion is to be attributed to the identity with the motif of Fig. 50, of which the quarter
notes appear as an enlargement. The ties in bars 5 and 6, whose abundance is suited to
the quarter-note motion of the upper voice, lead naturally to an eighth-note movement
of the left hand in bar 7. Bar 8 brings the half cadence of the antecedent with I—II ♯—V.
The consequent shows the inversion of the voices and an authentic cadence in the
register of a2 involving the same scale degrees, in which, to be sure, the concluding
tonic is metrically weak.
In the motif of these bars we again recognize bars 28–32 of the lead-in and bar 1 of Bar 17ff.
the Allegro, thus the seed of the movement, which here, however, is launched already
by the cadential progression of the tenor in bar 16, although as if only incidentally.
The motif migrates in bars 19–20 into the tenor, but returns in bars 21ff. to the upper
voice. Here the tone-succession e2—d2 gets caught up in a fivefold repetition (with
accelerated pace in bar 23) whose suspense now all the more urgently demands the
resolving tone-succession E—C ♯, which in fact appears in the bass in bars 24–25.
Observe, though, how already with the falling third in the second and third eighths
of bar 24 the transition from upper to lower voice is completed. It is surely for the
sake of that transition too that the bass moves in bar 23 expressly to the neighboring
tone f, in order to clear the way for the appearance of e with freshened sound and new
meaning. Yet this by no means signifies already the onset of tonic harmony; rather,
it is as though in bar 24 the d2 remained a half note, which, as seventh of the domi-
nant, finds its way to C ♯ of the bass (as third of the tonic) only in bar 25. Meanwhile,
of course, the sixteenth-note run takes care of the ascent to e3 and thus prepares the
progression in octaves of the right hand in the subsequent bars as well.
These bars follow completely in the tracks of bars 9–16, except that the lower voice Bar 25ff.
is placed lower by two octaves, and in the left hand the previous thirds are replaced
by sixths.3 The descending register transfer now leads to the authentic cadence in
the one-line octave (a1), on which occasion the tonic (by contrast to that in bar 16) is
brought onto the downbeat as well. But bar 32 still needs a special explanation. In a
voice leading like this:
Fig. 52
3
[The comparison is of bar 30 to bar 14.]
the bass, because of the purely contrapuntal procedure involving steps of a second,
would relinquish the emphatic character so desirable for the cadence. This precisely
is the reason Beethoven expressly turns to the root E at the fourth eighth; B, on the
other hand, is taken over by the inner voice—at the expense, to be sure, of the pass-
ing tone d. In the finished realization, as it is most clearly shown by the version in
the sketch, the cadence then shows the simultaneous traversal of a neighboring tone
in the lower voice and the motion 3—4 ͡ 4—3 in the upper voice, with the result that
the chord D—F ♯—A is necessarily formed at the second eighth.
Bar 33ff. Connected to the first theme, still in the main key of A major and therefore pre-
senting itself at first as an apparent thematic component of the first theme-group, is a
second theme, which, however, in the further course of events brings the modulation
(bars 40–41) to the key of the dominant, E major, and thus forms a transition to the
so-called subordinate theme, the true second theme, or rather, second theme-group.
But the melody of bars 33–40, so heartfelt and luxuriant, basically represents, as can
be seen above,4 nothing other than the particularization through various devices
of the cadential formula of the principal theme that has just ended (compare bars
15–16 and 31–33). The ties, the sixteenth-note accompanimental figure (taken from
the first theme), the embellishing sixth-detours of the melody—all of these combine
to give the illusion of a new element in this passage, where only an old one persists.
The gap that threatens in the downbeat of bar 33, however, is filled at once by the
new onset of an accompaniment of the left hand: such a technique—which is always
observed by our masters for the promotion of synthesis whenever the motif itself has
to enter only on a weak beat—logically entails that the bass, by continuing in the
manner now begun, insists with all the more determination on the downbeat the
more stubbornly the motif on the contrary emphasizes the upbeat.5
Bar 41ff. While the line in bars 33–40 remains altogether stationary (insofar as one is jus-
tified in considering a1—g ♯ 1—a1 as equivalent in the end to a1 alone), in the fol-
lowing bars it strives ever upward, as mentioned earlier. The ascending thematic
motion of bars 29ff. clearly provides the impetus, which the master is able to inten-
sify ingeniously by expressly leading the chords upward (Bҫ—C ♯ ҫ) in bars 39–40 as
well—thus even before the all-important linear nexus b1 (bar 41) appears —, only
for the purpose of literally compelling the line, through such direct pressure from
the immediate environs, to upward movement. If bars 39–44 accordingly show the
common characteristic of the upward direction, bars 41–44 nevertheless highlight
additional particular characteristics that distinguish them also as precisely a special
4
[Fig. 49.]
5
For example, Beethoven, Sonata Op. 2, No. 1, second theme; Op. 7, first movement, Coda; Mendelssohn,
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, first movement, second theme; etc.
Fourth Movement 91
group (though attached to the preceding bars by the cement of upward motion).
These unique traits are, then: the immobility of the tone b in the middle, which
clarifies the unity of the chord,6 and the elaborations [embedded in the progression]
7
͡
5—6—|5—6—|7—6|5—6,
which actually derives from the [syncopated] passing-tone technique 5—6—5—

6—5—6 etc. It is these features, then, that distinguish bars 41ff. from bar 40, and for
exactly that reason also make definite the beginning of the second theme—as definite,
anyway, as the modulation, thus the state of flux that goes with reinterpretation, can
permit. But what mental power it takes to begin with a theme under circumstances
that fundamentally resist a beginning, and then, beyond that, to conquer the difficul-
ties involved in the execution of such a synthesis! Of course, the exalted creative urge
toward synthesis not only drives the genius to set a goal of this kind in the first place,
but then leads him in turn to the means for its achievement. Even if these means often,
as here, seem simple, it is still true that only a genius finds them—the genius to whom
the connections between cause and effect in the tonal world are so well known. (What
a pity that politicians—leaders of the nation, decision makers of the government—do
not likewise attend the school of the genius!)
Regarding the master’s passing-tone technique in bars 41–44 the following
remains to be said: in bar 41 only a ҫ-chord is present, not a ŀ-chord, as the fifth,
a, moves upward to the sixth (5—6) rather than remaining in place, as one could
perhaps believe. In bar 43 the fifth cannot so easily be adjoined to the seventh as in
bar 41: first, the agglomeration in the chord of a, b, and c ♯ would be excessive, and
secondly, c ♯ (as fifth) would have had to lead to the leading tone, d ♯ (as sixth), and
thus to an impermissible doubling of the leading tone.
This, however, yields an insight as well into the variations in the meaning of the
accompanying sixteenth-note figure: it is always fitted to the existing condition of
the voices. It goes without saying that in the right hand, moreover, an anticipation
effect is easily heard. The state of affairs is somehow clouded in bar 44, however,
by the fact that the sixth, e2 , that is due in the upper voice on the upbeat is not so
clearly presented as was always the case in bars 41–43 with the tones that carry the
line (b1—c ♯ 2—d ♯ 2). The tone e2 appears here rather only as an inner voice, while a
b2 derived through substitution is placed above it so as to maintain the high posi-
tion announced by b2 on the downbeat. But if the sixth-leap g ♯ 1—e2 in bars 35–36
had already proved to be merely a melodic detour (see Counterpoint I, p. 92/131, §18)
6
[The harmony that is prolonged, the B7.]
without further consequences for the line itself, and if the same character of a
melodic detour also applied to the sixth-leaps to be found at the turn of bars 39–40,
41–42, and likewise 43–44, then one is all the more inclined to ask: why does
Beethoven maintain b2 still longer in such a way if it appears at this point to be
unproductive for the line? Well, with b2 , first of all a bridge was to be opened already
above the line ending with e2 to the three-line octave, in which the new ascent of
the same line to f ♯ 3 was to take place (see the sketch, Fig. 49). Add to this that the
same b2 is at the same time the repetition in the high register of the line’s point of
departure and one understands also why the master continues exactly this tone into
the upbeat of bar 44; why he even tarries on it as a kind of stopping place for two
more bars (bars 45, 46) before storming upward with newly gathered energy; why,
finally, he also takes the continuation in bar 45 of this very tone as the occasion to
abandon the technique of syncopation, and from this point on to subject both outer
voices equally to the organization of the meter.
If we consider the relationship in bars 40–45 of the lower voice to the inner voices
(see the sketch [in Fig. 49]), we see how the two lowest voices keep moving ever
closer to the stationary b1 in the middle, and at the moment when the proximity of
a second is reached (bar 45), the pressure that has thereby been generated has grown
to the point that a jerking back of the lower voice becomes unavoidable. Hence the
contrary motion of its sixteenth-note figure in bars 45–46, and then, in bars 47–48,
the tempestuous downward plunge back to the root, which in like manner the
upper voice opposes with its skyward rush. The latter, to be exact, covers its destined
path in bars 47–48 from b2 to f ♯ 3 (and even beyond) four times as fast (eighth notes
in place of the halves of bars 41–44; is it any wonder, then, that after the swift ride
upward it would be hurled back?
Bar 49ff. The content of bars 49–58, which are now to be investigated, had to remain a
puzzle until now, since nothing was known of the existence and the significance
of the Urlinie as I teach it. The information that it provides (see the sketch) runs
as follows: The falling line makes its first three steps in bars 49–55, but turns back
unexpectedly in bars 55–56 by way of G ♯ once again to the departure-point A, finally
to complete the journey (a2 to e2) all the more rapidly in bars 57–58, in quarter notes.
But such unheard-of brilliance of narrative art, such humor, such roguishness,
one might say, the composer lavishes in order to bring about this content! Time
after time we find ourselves deceived in our expectation: scarcely do we begin to
trust the voice leading to follow a certain direction before he succeeds in taking
us unawares with another voice leading that can only wipe out that confidence.
A constant this-way-and-that in the possibility for interpretations, and behind it
all the most cheerful storyteller, who deliberately misleads us, but is always able
to carry it off in such a way that we are taken in by his innocent expression. It
Fourth Movement 93
always sounds as though he himself were unaware of why and wherefore he brings
up one thing or another at a given point; as though responsibility would have to
fall not on him but only on the voice leading; as though the thing appeared dark
and confused even to him; indeed, as though the confusion grew even over his
own head—but how much more priceless, then, the instant (bar 57) when, having
decided finally to turn on a light, he sets himself to marching with bright satis-
faction and literally laughs, cries out, the four tones A—G ♯—F ♯—E!
If one could only conceive what high art of voice leading is required to give humor
such free rein in a musical narration. Everything that crops up in the continuation
at any point is always in turn only a result of what has preceded; but who, I ask for
the thousandth time, besides a genius can set up such preconditions, can draw such
issue from them, can be so completely the creator of preconditions and issue, and yet
be scarcely anything more than their enabling assistant?
Let us now plunge confidently into the labyrinth of wrong turnings:
In bars 49–50 we encounter the augmentation of the contrary-motion version
of the motif (bar 45); we take it for a response, especially as it also remains on the V,
except that we are uncertain, at least to begin with, whether it signifies only a
single tone (a1) as in bar 45, or whether it might possibly count already as the car-
rier and dispenser of three tones in the descending line a1—g ♯ 1—f ♯ 1.
That in bars 51–52 only g ♯ 1 leads becomes clear immediately, to be sure, and in
the light of that understanding we then put aside our doubt concerning the two
preceding bars, and belatedly attribute to them as well the meaning of only a
single tone, the a1. But is the C ♯ triad to be taken as an actual VI?
And what a riddle is posed immediately afterward by bars 53–55! After the
experiences of bars 49–51 we may, and must, expect f ♯ 1 here; but where is it to
be found? And moreover, in what sense is the chord progression F ♯ 3 —B to be
♯
understood? Only a thoroughgoing consideration of the voice leading in all of

these bars turns our feeling into certainty that in bars 53–55 again only one tone,
and indeed the tone f ♯ 1, is presented.
Accordingly, in bars 49–50 the root b from bar 48 is to be regarded as sustained.
In bars 51 to 52, b now goes to c ♯ 1, which can be found at the downbeat7 of bar 52.
This treatment of the lower voice ensued automatically from the imitations that
dominate the entire bar-group here under consideration. If we assume the motif in
bar 49–50 to lie, say, in an alto voice, then it is the tenor that imitates the same motif
in bars 51–52. But the fact that the motif of the tenor comes into such immediate
proximity with the principal line’s g ♯ 1 at the upbeat of bar 51 causes a problem for
the diminution in the principal line, assuming that one is loath to be content with
7
[Aufstreich by mistake in both German editions.]
a g ♯ 1 that merely sustains through bars 51–52—which, incidentally, would have gone
against the very spirit of counterpoint. Beethoven now disguises the sustaining by
expressly building a melodic arch above g ♯ 1. But the situation has meanwhile come
to a head at the beginning of bar 53: the lower voice, insisting on the second-step
b—c ♯ 1, claims its right to a continuation to d ♯ 1, and in fact, we find this tone in the
right hand as the lowest tone of the sixth-chord sonority attacked there; similarly,
g ♯ 1 demands in the name of the principal line a continuation to f ♯ 1; and finally, the
melodic arch too must somehow be given its due if the composer is not to have on
his conscience a sin against this new formation. This is how it happens, then, that at
the beginning of bar 53 d ♯ 1—f ♯ 1—b1 meet to form a chord, in such a way that each
individual tone carries within itself the fulfillment of a necessity proper to it. Now
it would also have been possible at this point to have the chord sustain through
two bars in the same configuration, or at most perhaps to have the bass find its way
back to the root; but such sustaining here was ruled out, again, first because the
motion in the preceding bars would not have tolerated such a stasis, but secondly,
too, because the imitations could not be so abruptly silenced. Beethoven therefore
arrives at the idea of assigning an additional imitation to the bass, and of suiting
this imitation to the character of the bass by a stronger treatment within the falling
fifth . The master then makes the most of this solution by exploiting it
also for the continuation of the upper voice with ĹĺĺĻ. In this way, at the beginning
of bar 55 the principal line has been completed in the space of three tones, and the
lower voice worked out by means of passing tones, without having moved out of the
region of the dominant.
Now all the more, a chain of new deceptions, new uncertainties, begins:
In bars 55–56, Beethoven finally brings the motif of the imitations into the soprano
as well, and there we see just what a toll he owes to the voice arrangement. But since
this imitation is based on a new scale degree, the I, we feel sorely tempted, in con-
sideration of the change of scale degree, to assume that in the end, already with bars
55–56 alone, three tones of the falling line, G ♯—F ♯—E, were intended, as here:
Fig. 53
This would mean, however, that we would face in these two bars a parallelism—a
faster moving one, to be sure—to the three tones of bars 49–55. Or, we are
Fourth Movement 95
constrained to select only the first tone of each of the groups under a and b, thus a1
and g ♯ 1, and to interpret these two tones as a kind of first, tentative venture toward
the descending line.
But now, at the head of bars 57–58, the tone A suddenly reappears, and we must
ask: which of the earlier impressions finally holds good in the light of this new event?
After reassessment of them all, we give priority to the first impression,8 which offered us
the motif of bars 49–50 as an augmentation of the inversion from bar 45, and, following
that impression, we now recognize also in the overall motion of bars 49–56 something
akin to an augmentation of the augmentation—thus, again A—G ♯—F ♯—G ♯—(A)9 —,
except, to be sure, with the very critical difference in comparison to bars 49–50 that the
harmonic change V—I has now penetrated this tone-succession. But it is precisely this
factor which then joins in the demand for the ultimate disposition of the whole descend-
ing line in the sense of still another harmonic change (V—I, bars 57–58).
Here begins the closing theme, which merely repeats and confirms the second Bar 59ff.
theme. But such brilliance in the art of concealment applied to the presentation of
the actual content here as well!
The gaily humoristic tone and rhythm struck most recently is maintained. The
line again takes up b1 (see bar 41, 44, or 47), but must content itself with the fact
that initially a still higher line glides off from the cadential tone e2 . If it was, to be
sure, tonal conscience that opposed the immediate abandonment of the e2 attained
in bar 58, the master was also able to draw advantage from the subordination thus
dictated, for as early as bar 65 he makes the upper line suddenly push ahead to b2 so
as finally to unite with the actual principal line.
To conclude, let us glance back at the entire section [just discussed] with the aim
of clearing up several further matters:
In the first theme, bars 1–33, the harmonic organization essentially comes down
to the following:
I — V
bar 1 │ 4
7 │ 8
9 │ 12 etc.
8
[Thus in both German editions, but apparently by mistake. Though the language is written in such a way as
to make a simple oversight unlikely, the meaning surely must be instead be “second interpretation”; see the
continuation and note 9.]
9
[The figure in bars 55–56 is merely an ephemeral prolongation of the tone g ♯2 by means of horn-fifths—an
obvious counterpart to the exactly parallel succession of bars 49–50, which has already been interpreted as
standing for only the single tone a1—and thus could scarcely represent a linear progression to e2 as goal. If
the second interpretation is indeed the one Schenker means (see note 8), bar numbers can be assigned to this
four- (five-) tone succession as follows: 49–50, 51–52, 53–54, 55–56, (57).]
Let us not overlook the fact that the content of bars 1–8 in abbreviated form also
appears as follows:
Fig. 54
and, for the rest, let us not consider the authentic cadences in bars 15–16 and 31–33
( ♯IV—V—I) necessarily as contradictions of the plan, which alone is here under
consideration.
The reverse of the above scale-degree ordering, however, V—I, is characteristic of
the second theme:
V — I
bar 41 │ 44
45 │ 58 (!)
And the closing theme as well, in essence, adheres to this ordering:
V — I
bar 68 │ 70
72(77!) │ 81
One should not be deceived about this by the prefixing of the I in bars 59, 63, 66,
and 70, or by the introduction of several other harmonies in bars 72–77 and 78–81.
Rather, these devices are intended only to veil the basic ordering and, at the same
time, to serve the purposes of cadence construction as demanded by the final close,
apart from the fact that they are also necessary for various technical reasons. Thus,
for example, in bar 59, after the progression V—I has been repeated several times
(bars 41–44, 45–56, and 57–58), a V—I cannot at once be openly presented again.
The I that appears here (see also bar 66), however, then had to call for a I in bar 70 as
well. And if bars 78–81, just because of their formal significance as final bars, could no
longer so simply be dispatched with V—I, as was still possible in bars 57–58, that had
a retroactive effect on the harmonic progression in the preceding bars as well, which
now likewise had to be enriched for the sake of balance. That Beethoven, however,
in the midst of these deferments, took care to make his way to f ♯ 3 a second time (bar
77) and finally, as demanded by the general plan, to set this tone above the V (observe
by contrast the II at f ♯ 3 in bar 75), cannot cease to astound as a stroke of genius.
Now a further word about the inner tempo of the line:
The contrast is shown already in the first theme between larger and smaller values,
representing as though a broadening, expansion, enlargement on the one hand and
Fourth Movement 97
an acceleration on the other—see bars 1–4 and 6–8. The same contrast, however,
covertly persists in the further course: in bars 33–38 still swaying broadly in pairs
of bars ( ), the line gains velocity starting in bar 39—see the half
notes in bars 39–44 and the eighths in bars 47–48 (which of course basically stand
for quarters, in which form they could easily have been presented also in a normal
way in bars 45–48). Then again a broadening in bars 49–56, which is answered by
the acceleration in bars 57 to 58, and similarly an expansion in bars 59ff. that is coun-
tered in bars 78–81 with a light acceleration.
The sketches mentioned in the Prefatory Remarks return only at two points to the
First Part of the Allegro; both concern the second theme, bars 38ff. We read on leaf 3:
Fig. 55
but then the following as well:
Fig. 56
According to the Autograph, in the group of bars 5–8, only bar 7 has a slur in
the right hand; the Original Edition, Peters, and Reinecke show the same, while
the other editions place sometimes a slur above each bar of the group (d’Albert,
Klindworth), sometimes only one slur over all of the bars (Bülow, Conservatory,
Schott, etc.). In bar 16 I follow the Autograph in omitting from the left hand the
eighth-note rest, which unfortunately is included by all editors; and my sketch
(Fig. 49) gives the proof that such a rest absolutely contradicts the voice leading
as well. Whether it be out of haste or oversight that Beethoven writes no slur
whatever in the bass in bar 17—if one were present, however, it would have had to
include all three tones—the Original Edition does go wrong in articulating: ,
but at the same time, like the Gesamtausgabe, Urtext, and Bülow, eschews a tie
. (The latter form is used, for example, in Peters.) In bar 19, on the other
hand, the slur was entered by Beethoven himself. Similarly, clear and precise in the
Autograph is the slur over the first three eighths of bar 20, and the notation
in the Original Edition (likewise in the Urtext, Gesamtausgabe, Conservatory,
etc.) may perhaps be attributed to an oversight. The articulation of the actual motif
in bars 17–20 is given in my text exactly according to the Autograph, and the fact
that Beethoven does not include the e1 in bar 19 in the slurred group as he did the
e2 in bar 17 has to do with the syncopated rhythm in bar 19. When editions such as
Bülow, Klindworth, Schott, etc. indifferently place the whole motif, including the
tone D, under a slur in both places, it is clear that they had no understanding of
such contrapuntal reasons for slur treatment. At the turn of bars 20–21 we still see
the traces of a tie. The master adds a slur after the fact in pencil above bars 21–23,
but unfortunately so indistinctly that we can no longer determine whether it also
includes the first sixteenth of bar 24 or not. The Original Edition draws it only to
the end of bar 23; other editions show it differently and in completely varying ways.
This problem is certainly not easy to solve; the greatest probability speaks for a slur
up to the first sixteenth of bar 24, which would best serve the expression of the d2
that essentially sustains through all bars. The writing of bar 24, as is shown by the
heavy erasures, obviously cost the master effort: in the Autograph, g ♯ 1 of the right
hand is indeed clearly set down as an eighth with subsequent rest; unfortunately,
the value of b in the left hand is not established with equal clarity. It cannot be seen
whether Beethoven intended or —thus in the latter case b as a quarter.
If we consider, however, that already in bar 23 he combined the voices in the left
hand and thus abjured the polyphonic notation that he had observed in bars 21
to 22, it might be possible to draw the conclusion that he meant b in bar 24 only as
an eighth, but of course just for purely piano-technical reasons—thus only in the
superficial sense of notation. In fact, the notation of the b as a quarter expresses
nothing that would not equally well be expressed with an eighth. The objection
that could possibly be raised against this on the basis of the original notation of
the right hand would be refuted by the fact that Beethoven originally planned two
eighths (I assume a and g ♯) for the right hand of bar 24, which obliged him to
use a polyphonic notation; in correcting, he deleted the second eighth, in place of
which he set an eighth rest, but still kept the first in the polyphonic notation and
finally let it stand as such. The Original Edition writes b as a quarter, and it is fol-
lowed in this by the Urtext and Gesamtausgabe, d’Albert, Conservatory Edition,
Peters, Reinecke; other editions (Bülow for example) give an eighth. Klindworth,
however, goes so far, just for the sake of equalization, to make g ♯ 1 of the right hand
a quarter note as well.—In bar 27 Beethoven subsequently added an sf in pencil to
the contra A of the left hand.—It remains completely incomprehensible how the
Original Edition could begin already in bar 31 the sign , which the master
prudently limits to bar 32, and how all editions, including the Gesamtausgabe and
Urtext, could follow suit. In bar 32 the sign perfectly suits the voice leading under
way (see above); but what could be the point of such a sign applied already to the
I and ♯IV presented in bar 31?
In the text of bars 34–35, as also later in bar 38, I follow the original notation,
which shows the a1 on the downbeat as a quarter and not as an eighth with follow-
ing rest. The intent of the quarter-note value in these places, to state it here already, is
Fourth Movement 99
confirmed in the Reprise too, and through the sketches. The Original Edition gives
the a1 in question as an eighth with rest, but probably through an oversight, when
we consider that in bar 35 it begins the slur already with a1. The Original Edition is
followed by the Gesamtausgabe, Bülow, Klindworth, Peters, Reinecke; the Urtext,
however, sets a1 in bar 34 as an eighth, but in bar 35 as a quarter. The original nota-
tion of the e in the left hand in bars 36 and 39 as a quarter has to do with the voice
leading , whose directly evident sense—d goes to c ♯ by way of e—simply
makes any deviant notation (especially one like that of Klindworth: )
appear ridiculous.—The master’s upward stemming of the first quarter b2 in bar 44
shows the usual care taken in his polyphonic notation, which, incidentally, was all
the more imperative here as the e2 that is due at the second quarter, in keeping with
the line, was to appear in the inner voice. Unfortunately, even the Original Edition
no longer observed this notation. That the master keeps the voices of the right hand
separated in bars 52–55 as well is entirely predictable for him. The Original Edition
follows him in this, but no subsequent edition does. The slurring in bars 51–58 is
given by my text precisely as in the Autograph; it is confirmed by that in the cor-
responding passage in the Reprise.
Among all editions, strangely it is the Original Edition that, perhaps by oversight,
repudiated the polyphonic presentation of bars 59ff. In bar 65 the f ♯ is missing from
the chords in the left hand, and that Beethoven actually did not originally want
this tone here follows from his notation: , which also shows only three lengthen-
ing dots. The Original Edition presents this chord as in bar 61, and, incidentally, at
the equivalent passage in the Reprise even Beethoven himself likewise assembles
four tones.
The performance of the first theme, bars 1–2, requires a pressure on the chord of
the first quarter, but already at the second eighth, thus still within the span of the
chord, a relaxation of the hand, which makes it possible nevertheless to play rhyth-
mically in the cleanest non-legato the sixteenth-note figure of the upbeat, despite
its secondary significance for the primary line at this point and despite the shadow
that must fall on it. It is all the less permissible here for the sixteenths to sound
blurred given that in bars 5 and 6, where they appear in continuous proximity, they
nevertheless presuppose, just because of the syncope formations in the left hand, the
strictest rhythmic definition. The performance must moreover confirm the truth of
the relationship in which the sixteenths of the upbeat in bar 1 and the enlargement
in bars 5–7 (see above) stand. What in the former appeared only as announcement
of a direction that, in comparison to the falling line of the primary tones, is at first
unable to hold its own, comes to fulfillment in the latter. Toward the end of bar 7,
a slight broadening is in order for the sake of the coming fermata. The same laws of
performance apply as well to the rearrangement of the voices in the consequent, bars
9ff.; in particular, it should not be forgotten in bar 12 to sunder the last eighth in the
left hand from the following tone, exactly as was done thus far with all upbeat for-
mations.—The cadence in bars 15–16, because of the suspensions, is to be executed as
follows: . In bar 17, d2 should be brought out with . The stronger
emphasis on d2 continues to be requisite also in bars 21ff., but especially in bar 24,
although d2 here outwardly manifests the value merely of a sixteenth. The increased
pressure is urgently recommended in bar 24 at the same time for technical reasons,
for it is all the easier, once the hand is relaxed after application of pressure, to pro-
ceed with the remaining sixteenths, in which process, with the thumb on e2 , the
octave reach e2—e3 (bar 25) is immediately preformed. In the same bar, likewise,
a pressure at the first eighth by the left hand and a directly connected relaxation
will provide the advantage of letting the hand skim over the subsequent tones of
the anticipation (see above10) as though only cursorily, especially if my fingering 2-4
is employed. Observe this experience well: the fingers 2-4 with e—c ♯ of the small
octave and E—C ♯ of the great not only reproduce a truth by finger-technical means,
but in so doing promote ease of performance as well (see 110, p. 20f.). Do not be
dissuaded from the performance here recommended, however, just by the master’s
marking, which carries the crescendo through to the forte of bar 25. The pressure
of the right and left hands in bar 24 combined with the sixteenth-note figure surg-
ing upward, and then the pianistic texture from bar 25 on, will themselves bring
about the effect of a crescendo and forte without any dwelling on sixteenth-note by
sixteenth-note execution of the crescendo.
In bars 33ff. the waves of the sixteenth-note figure must carry the melodic idea
lightly on their crest. The more ephemeral in a certain sense this melodic phe-
nomenon is here, the more beautifully it may collect itself to an upward glance
particularly where—in bars 35–37, after the preceding syncopated as well as jolt-
ing onsets—it takes on the tangible physical shape of a tonal “word” comprising
four tones.
On this very passage, Bülow writes the following (p. 12 a):
In the specifically humoristic or rather gay allegro-movements of Beethoven

works of the last period as well, lyrical singing passages are found which
demand a practically glowing, passionately energetic performance. The inten-
sification that begins here—through all of sixteen bars—must be played with
that warmth which can be learned, unfortunately, not from German violin-
ists, but from those of the Belgian or French school.
10
[Page 89. The E—C ♯ of bars 24–25 is anticipated by the e—(d)—c ♯ within bar 24.]
Fourth Movement 101
Beethoven, the German, brings warmth here, and Bülow, the German, extols the
warmth of Belgian and French violinists! But nobody can top Richard Wagner,
who even writes (Über das Dirigieren): “The German is awkward and stiff when
he wants to appear polite; but he is splendid and superior to all when he gets
excited.”11 Better too, for the German to get overexcited than to show warmth in
the manner of the Frenchman, for whom it is mostly only a transformation of the
energy of vanity.12
In bar 36, if the resonances of e1 of the right hand and small e of the left are made
to interpenetrate, it will sound—orchestrally speaking—as though a delicate horn
tone were to appear in the chord to lend it warmth. From bar 40 on the expression
will be intensified if the left hand is raised ever higher bar by bar, thus continuously
increasing the sonic force of the falling attack as well. An acceleration beginning in
bar 41 reaches its goal only at the quarter rest of bar 49; but it should not prevent
the second quarter in the left hand in bars 45 and 46 from being marked out by
means of a strong (almost sf ) pressure, nor, at the beginning of bar 47, the crescendo
from being artificially moderated somewhat,13 thus making the weight of the overall
crescendo all the more credible. The effect of the eighth-note rush in bars 47–48 is
intensified if the last notes of the series are thrown off in an ever more pointed stac-
cato. In the quarter rest of bar 49, leave the last pedal down, but release it just before
the right hand continues to the next tone. Correct rendition of bars 49ff. depends
on replication of the good mood that the master sets up here. Otherwise all expan-
sion and acceleration, every legato and staccato, every piano and forte remains a
sterile tonal game, an emotional grimace. Bülow, who so likes to make himself—or
more correctly to try to make himself—the guide into the poet’s land, has for this
passage merely a purely piano-technical comment, which moreover has no validity.
11
[Richard Wagner, Über das Dirigieren (Leipzig: Insel-Bücherei, [1914]), p. 73.]
12
[Once I heard in Vienna a performance by a large French orchestra, on tour under the direction of an alleg-
edly famous conductor, of, among other works, the Leonora Overture No. 3. Everything in this demonic
work of the most characteristic nature, heart, and love of a German genius, every brilliantly constructed
ultimate formula of a human core-experience, a formula in which the genius, creatively loving and creatively
understanding, places the highest art in the service of nature, so that art almost threatens to drown out
nature’s eternal thunderous word of love,—all of that is covered over in the performance by the French
with that esprit which they themselves certainly have every interest in representing as genius—the inter-
est of vanity as well as of commercialism. Beethoven demonism in polite conversation, in the esprit-clarté
manner—the soul of a genius as though wearing gloves! Sadly, lack of education everywhere falls into the
trap of the Frenchman, and people actually do him the favor—this pride of the average and of Philistinism,
for whom Genius understood in the highest sense will remain a foreign word until the end of time—of con-
fusing his industrious esprit, his glibness (signs precisely of mediocrity and of the average), with the divine
demonism of which Genius is possessed!]
13
[No marked crescendo is in effect here; the probable meaning is a slight moderation at the downbeat of bar
47 of the forte dynamic to allow for a renewed thrust toward the coming climactic sf.]
Here is his notational text, which I cite as a tone-optical monstrosity, a veritable

mental scarecrow:
Fig. 57
He comments as follows: “to promote a better legato in the right hand, the inner
voice of the right hand is assigned to the left” (p. 14, note a).
The accompaniment of the left hand in bars 59ff. demands painstakingly exact
and clean execution; in the process, there should be no lack of either a beautiful stac-
cato of the chords or, especially, a dependable subdivision of the bar at the upbeat,
which alone enables the correct and beautiful performance of the right hand.
Experience teaches that through nervousness on the part of the player, who thinks
exclusively of the coming downward leap, difficulty can easily arise for the fourth
eighth in each case; in response it must be made emphatically clear that only the
completely correct rendition of the accompanimental chords averts all perils of this
passage. The last sixteenth of bar 60 is to be played only with the fourth finger and
not, as recommended in so many editions, with the thumb: with the latter finger-
ing, the hand becomes guilty of a kind of lie, as it asserts a relationship between a1
and f ♯ 2 , where in reality none exists. A secure tying-off of the second sixteenth from
the first chord of the right hand in bar 68, as well as the rhythmic performance of
the sixteenths, can be achieved most reliably through the fingering I have recom-
mended, which—following a most natural psychology—places the second finger on
c ♯ 2 as though b1 had been played just before by the thumb. A fingering too must
have truth, and it is by no means sufficient merely to enable performance of tonal
successions with any arbitrary fingering; the fingering must render the rational con-
tent in a rational manner. But where could one easily find a cruder mockery of the
art of fingering than in that recommended by Bülow (and Klindworth as well), for
example, for bar 68:
Fig. 58
Fourth Movement 103
He comments: “For reasons of playability we have divided the first figure into two
parts. Preferable, of course, if more difficult from the perspective of fingering, would
be the following division:
Fig. 59
since a separation after the chord should be carried out somewhat unnoticeably.”
In bar 82 the transition to the actual Development begins. In the harmonic respect
it represents a remodulation to the principal key of A major and a half cadence in
that key:
bar: 82———85 ——86 ——88 —— 89
E major: I
A major: V ———I ——IV —— ♯IV ——V Ĺ (Ļ)
Thematically, with its ascending line in half notes, its direct connection, indeed,
is only to the closing theme—half notes prevail actually from bar 59 on —; but
indirectly, and particularly because the line basically rises from g ♯ 1 only as far as d2
(bars 86–88) and from there turns back to b1, it connects even to the citation of the
first movement that precedes the Allegro, as though this now was called upon to
introduce the Development as well. The half notes are moreover interspersed with
the eighth-note motif of bar 80 (which appeared already in bar 76) in the sense
of a dying away of the latter. At the arrival of V, the Ĺ-suspension does not find
resolution. But this very elision serves best to prepare the fugal theme, in that the
theme’s line presents C—B immediately at the outset. How lackluster this would
have sounded:
Fig. 60
The two ff strokes at the turn of bars 89–90 (a tempo), born along with the first
theme of the Allegro (see above for the derivation that lies even farther back), give
the signal for the Development.
Bar 92ff. As mentioned above, the Development is fugal. What it has in common with an
actual fugue, in this case a four-voice one, is that, although conceived as Development
of a sonata movement, it nevertheless clearly observes a definite principal key (A
minor, a modal mixture of the overall key) as clearly as any fugue from J. S. Bach’s
Well-Tempered Clavier. What it moreover has in common with an actual fugue is
a clear articulation into three parts, the first comprising bars 92–140, the middle
bars 141–176, and the last bars 177–200. The First Part, the exposition, shows four
entrances: bass, tenor, alto, and soprano, and in addition a redundant one (bars
123ff.); the other two sections present only one entrance each, bars 141ff. and 179ff.,
but of course not without alternative substitutes.
What on the other hand deprives the fugue here of the independence of a separate
form is not only the circumstance that it is placed in the middle of a sonata move-
ment, but that it also in essence makes considerable concessions to the requirements
of a development section:
Above all one must consider in this respect the fact that not only the fugal theme
itself but also its counterpoint is derived from the first theme (bars 1–4). Even the
rising line (bars 5–6) from that theme is employed for the augmentations that then
constitute the hallmark of the second and third sections of the fugal development
(bars 149–153, 157–161, 191–195), so that even for a sonata movement, a more the-
matic development section cannot easily be imagined.
As a further decisive concession here to the developmental character must be
considered the oddly irregular relationship of dux and comes along with all conse-
quences that spring from it. The dux begins in A minor, but avoids modulating in
perhaps the following way to E minor as the key of the upper dominant:
Fig. 61
In such a case the comes then would have had to provide the remodulation to
A minor [as sketched in the second half of Fig. 61]. Instead, the dux modulates to C
major, the key of the upper third; the comes, however, seeks to move from C major
neither to the main key of A minor nor to the key of the dominant, E minor, but
strikes out rather for the key of D minor. Even if the comes had moved from C major
to E minor, though, the weight of a key decisively contrasting for the comes and
thus for the entire fugue could not have devolved onto this latter key—not even,
indeed, had Beethoven caused a hypothetical cadence in E minor to be followed
Fourth Movement 105
by an episode with the purpose of bringing back the main key of A minor. All of
this resulted, as we see, only from the fact that the theme was not at the outset
turned toward E minor. The key of the upper dominant is deliberately avoided by
the master—what would be the point of a further opposition of this kind in the
Development, when he has already worked it out so forcefully (in A major) in the
First Part of the Allegro movement? Thus in the course of the fugue the upper domi-
nant is exhibited only once in the whole second section, bars 162ff., while the move-
ment tends for the rest primarily toward the C-major key—see the modulation in
the dux, the beginning of the comes, the modulation in the fourth entrance together
with the beginning of the redundant fifth entrance, and the entrance in the middle
section, bar 141. It is exactly this continual tendency toward the key of the III at
the expense of the upper dominant, however, which makes the fugal texture appear
suited for the developmental purpose. If the keys in the [“fugal”] exposition now
accordingly proceed as follows:
• First entrance: A minor to C major

• Second entrance: C major to D minor
• Third entrance: D minor to A minor
• Fourth entrance: A minor to C major
• Fifth (redundant) entrance: C major to D minor
—which is certainly a consequence only of the first deviation from the fugal
norm—a sign of the adaptation to developmental purposes too can nevertheless be
glimpsed in this plan.14
Finally, the un-fugal conclusion in the third section must be mentioned; set
entirely in the main key, it avoids an authentic cadence, moving instead to the
dominant, exactly in the manner of a development, so as to gain the Reprise from
that point.
As in any well constructed four-voice fugue in general, in our Development sec-
tion as well the four-voice texture is not maintained throughout; we find four-voice
writing only in bars 114–121 (at the fourth entrance), temporarily in bars 123, 134
and 135, 149 and 150, [and] 162–172, and finally, as goes without saying, almost con-
tinuously in the last section (because of stretti and intensifications).
Discussion of the details may be preceded by the following sketch of the complete
Development:
14
[The “first deviation from the fugal norm” is the mere fact that this “fugue” is placed in the middle of a
sonata movement (see above, p. 104); the adaptation to developmental purposes is the second deviation.]
Fig. 62-1
Fig. 62-2
Fig. 62-3
Fourth Movement 109
Fig. 62-4
When we consider how already in the first theme the urge becomes apparent to
arrive at the dominant by way of the descending direction (regardless of whether the
reversal, which thwarts that urge, occurs already at the leading tone, G ♯, as seen in
Fig. 54, or on the other hand, as here:
Fig. 63
only at the F ♯), we find in our dux that this trait of the first theme is openly con-
firmed in a specific manner: the line departs from C and falls (in reality) to E—not,
however, as in the first theme, steadily by steps of a second, but only by fits and starts,
as it were; I felt it advisable here, incidentally, to reflect this feature in the sketch
as well. The absence on the one hand of the ascending leading tone of A minor,
and also, on the other hand, of the chromatic tone F ♯, which would have signaled E
minor, compels us as the line descends below the root to hear a shift of tonal center,
thus to hear in terms of C instead of A; and it is only logical in the process that
Beethoven clarifies this veiled modulation as expressing C major by means of the
last two sixteenths of bar 98. It is important to keep in mind this inherent compul-
sion that derives from the [major and minor] systems:
Fig. 64
But the circumstance that in the dux, apart from the upward-flitting sixteenths in
bars 92 and 94, the descending direction is maintained exclusively, now becomes the
destiny of the whole Development. The counterpoints, too, descend with the themes,
and, as I have already suggested and will soon have occasion to show more exactly,
only in the middle and last sections is resistance offered by the rising line (as shown
in bars 5–6); this resistance, however, is broken in the end by the falling direction.
All relationships in the second entrance find their elucidation in the following plan:15
Fig. 65
Immediately with the arrival of B ♭, first in the counterpoint and then in the comes (bar
102), notice is served of the chromatic alteration leading toward D minor that appears
in the bass.16 Comes and counterpoint descend in thirds (except for the point in bar 102
where the seventh is taken over by the comes itself), which of course does not prevent
the realization from using the alternation, so propitious for the inversion, of sixths and
thirds.17 (In the sketch, Fig. 62, this could not always be brought out with precision.) The
counterpoint at first (in bars 99–101) mixes tied quarters with a falling sixteenth-note
figure, which connects in a completely natural way to the falling dux and at the same
time functions as inversion of the sixteenth-note figure of the theme. In bars 102ff.,
eighth notes of the theme are counterpointed in turn by eighth notes, which deepens
the relationship between theme and counterpoint in an unusual way: far from signify-
ing merely contrasts to each other, they appear, while observing motivic similarity to the
utmost extent, to pursue common goals. In bar 100 the second-suspension18 c resolves
not to the immediately following B, as one might judge by the sixteenth-note figure,
but, in keeping with the teaching of strict counterpoint (Counterpoint I, 325ff./429ff),
only to B ♭ in the upbeat. In bar 102 the resolution of the B ♭ ( ͡ 2) takes place through the
technique of voice exchange only at the last eighth, a, of the right hand.
The third entrance (bars 106–113) brings again the octave leap of the dux,19 as
well as the doubling in sixths in the counterpoints. The modulation to A minor is
presaged by the line itself:
15
[The alignment bars in this figure show that the ♭7 (B ♭) that enters and is prolonged above the bass C remains
to become a seventh above C ♯ as well, thereupon resolving to the sixth, A.]
16
[C ♯ in bar 104.]
17
[That is]

18
[Sekundschritt (“step of a second”), which must be an error for Sekundvorhalt (“second-suspension”).]
19
[As opposed to the seventh-leap of the comes, bar 102.]
Fourth Movement 111
Fig. 66
The course of the fourth entrance too corresponds exactly to that of the dux, includ-
ing even a completely faithful reuse of bar 98. In the counterpoints of the middle
voices the technique of the preceding entrance reoccurs, while the lowest voice sup-
ports the setting less in a purely contrapuntal way than in that of the non-strict
style. The modulation to C major is likewise communicated by the line:
Fig. 67
The redundant entrance arrives (according to the fugal law of metric displacement)
in the upbeat of bar 123. From the standpoint of keys it completely follows the comes
(C major—D minor), but differs from it through an easily recognizable abbrevia-
tion in bars 127–128, by which means the meter is restored, and finally through a
powerful expansion of the D-minor harmony (bars 128–140) to be interpreted in
the sense of an episode, which is further elucidated here:
Fig. 68
We learn from this that a modulatory advance directly from bar 128 to bars
137–140 would indeed have been conceivable; that therefore, precisely the
expansion (the episode-like one) is situated within the insertion of a more
elaborate connection of those points. We see too how it is the same bass tones
f—e—d that move through hastily in bar 128, appearing as though neglected by
the voice leading, but that, emerging in a weightier rhythmic format and more
richly endowed with chromatic passing tones (along with 5—6—5—6), 20 are
decisive in bar 136–140 for the conclusion of the expansion and the modulation
to C major. The outer voices are led in thirds and sixths by turn; along the way,
the treatment of the inner voices in the respective subdivisions confirms, in one
of them [—bars 128–130—], the D-minor harmony, but presents in the other
[—bar 135—] the illusion of an F harmony. The handling of the inner voices has
to do in part with the necessity of avoiding parallel fifths, as in bars 127–128,
and in part (bars 133–135) with composing out of the individual elements of the
passing motion.
Bar 141ff. Entrance in C major as beginning of the middle section. A deviation from the
comes is shown in bar 144, where the soprano takes instead of the expected c1 its
upper third ([and continues with] counterpoint in parallel tenths); this makes it
possible to present in the soprano, and indeed in that register already presaged in
bars 133 to 135 (!), [in keeping with] the law of obligatory handling of registers, the
first theme of the Allegro movement in its entirety with its falling and rising line,
and in augmentation (two bars to each half note and half notes for quarters). The
following précis should reveal all happenings of the middle section yet more per-
spicuously than they can be seen in Fig. 62:21
20
[A supplement to Schenker’s example may prove useful]
21
[By “the first theme of the Allegro movement in its entirety with its falling and rising line” Schenker alludes
only to the respective falling and rising line(s), not to the specific diminution through which the latter are
expressed. Fig. 69, in its representation of bars 144–153, could arguably be still more perspicuous than it is.
Its undifferentiated whole notes do not represent the actual rhythm as Schenker has just explained it, nor
the fact that b1 of bar 149 moves, as a leading tone, to c2 of the same bar, while g1 of the subsequent ascending
line is expressed in only a quarter-note value in the upbeat of bar 149.]
Fourth Movement 113
Fig. 69
In bars 154–158 the line actually remains motionless at the point c2 , and it is only
neighboring tones that occupy our ear, while the bass moves ahead from C through
D to the root22 E. (Concerning the technique by which parallel octaves between
outer voices are avoided here through interpolation of roots, see the detailed discus-
sion in Free Composition.23)
The plot intensification that next presents itself is the opposition of the two
lines. Regardless of whether this were to be considered derivable already from the
opposition in bars 5–6 of the opening of the Allegro (as it might be if one were
inclined there to derive the falling line of syncopating tones from the falling line in
22
[Grundton, here meaning merely lowest tone. The E bass at the second beat of bar 157 corresponds motivically
to the c of bar 154 and to the D of bar 155 (an anticipation) and the d of bar 156, but it is not analogous to those
tones in being the root of the of the harmony.]
23
[See in Free Composition §§162–163. No example is provided there of the technique specific to this passage,
which is the interpolation between the octaves c/C (bar 154) and d/D (bar 156, with the bass D anticipated
in bar 155) of the root G as dividing upper fifth of the C. (The resulting upward fifth-leap is then replicated
in relation to the bass D in bars 156–157).]
bars 1–4), it decisively confirms the master’s full consciousness of the opposition of
the two lines (bars 1–4 and 5–6 respectively) in general, as also of the relationship of
the sixteenth-note figure, bars 1 and 3, to the enlargement in bars 5–6.
In bars 162–168 one should be confused neither by the dissolution of the opposi-
tion of the lines into a successive ordering24 nor by the sixteenth-note diminution
(see bars 162 and 164, then bars 166 and 168), nor even by the tone C in bar 166, as
the aim here is instead for a still more significant enlargement than the one in bars
157–161. The large bracket (see Fig. 69) shows the extent of the enlargement of the
line descending from A to D ♯;25 the three smaller brackets beneath the tones indi-
cate the three segments of the path; the slurs above the last two segments show the
extensions in which, as though in the manner of a by-product, the line (C—B—A)
instigated by C of bar 158 (!) is given expression as well. The C in bar 166 brings a
replication of the neighboring-tone construction in bars 154–157 (see above) in that
it facilitates at the same time the connection of C of bar 158 to B of bar 168. As to
the true significance of the roots interpolated between the main scale degrees, see
the slurs beneath the bass tones.26 A god of the tones and at the same time their ser-
vant, Beethoven apportions to each individual tone, as we see here, the appropriate
measure of justice: he places all in the service of a guiding idea, imposes the rankings
among them necessary for realization—I have said and I repeat: how much couldn’t
statesmen learn from them, if they were at all able to learn! —, and so achieves the
harmonious effect of an organic whole.
The way to the syncopated rhythm that arises in bar 169 is paved already by the sf
accents in bars 162 and 166; the seeds of a tying-over are present even in them. The
middle section ends with a remodulation to A minor.
Bar 177ff. At the beginning of the last section, it is at first the stretti that are deceptive
concerning the arrival of the actual thematic entrance. As such, though, only that
entrance is to be seen whose upbeat appears in bar 178 (piano). Decisive above all
for this reading is the coincidence of this entrance with the meter; it is presented
accordingly as repetition of the entrance in the lowest voice in bar 177. Especially
noteworthy in this process is the technique of exchange of roles: the third voice
takes over from the fourth the tone c2 , so that the latter can now form a higher coun-
terpoint. The continuation is shaped, incidentally, along the lines of the C-major
24
[That is, the ascending direction (bars 162–163, 166–167) now alternates with the descending (bars 164–165,
168–169).]
25
[Reference is to the bracket that actually extends to the concluding e1. The E that supports this e1 should
be parenthesized in the sketch, because an elision occurs at the cadential moment (the third eighth-note of
bar 174).]
26
[The slurs, unfortunately, are not decisive regarding which scale degrees Schenker regards as the main
ones.]
Fourth Movement 115
entrance in the middle section, bars 143–144. In bar 186 a3 is reached, and thus the
state of the dux at bar 95. Here too the line descends, as in the dux, at first as far as e2
in bars 186–188, to which is adjoined a roundabout diminution worked out with the
fifth-progression already known to us from bar 98 and standing for the simple line:
bar 188 190 191

e —— d —— c.
The appearance of the augmentation in bars 191ff.—only the first [recte: second] tone
(f ♯) is augmented, while the following tones remain quarters as before!27—shows
that we are not at all dealing here with an organ point. To end the fugue with the
augmentation, but at the same time introduce the Reprise, bar 200, surely represents
a brilliant psychological stroke.
As the sketches show, the course of the transition was not established at the outset;
we find on leaf 3:
Fig. 70
but already the following, to be sure, as well:

Fig. 71
To animate the half notes, Beethoven at first attempts to get by with simple
portamenti:
Fig. 72
until finally, still on leaf 3, he closely approaches the final version.

The head of the fugal theme is established already on leaf 3; the end of the theme,
however, is still uncertain, and with it also the ordering of keys. On leaf 6 Beethoven
drafts the following:
27
[Reference can only be to the thematic augmentation in the contra octave. The augmentation actually
applies to all tones of theme (in a 4:1 ratio, except the first tone, which is expanded only by a 2:1 ratio).]
Fig. 73
Fourth Movement 117
But we also find already on leaf 3 a sketch of an entrance modulating from D minor
to A minor:
Fig. 74
It cost great effort to arrive at the counterpoints to the theme: leaf 7 (recto) shows
the following counterpoint for a D-minor and an A-minor entrance:
Fig. 75
The main battle, however, plays out on the verso of leaf 7—a true bloodbath of
note-heads, whose picture a musically aspiring youth surely would have to view
always as a lesson and a source of comfort! There we still find, for example:
Fig. 76
and along these lines for the third entrance as well:

Fig. 77
Counterpoints, then, from which it can be inferred that Beethoven originally had
in mind using the last eighths of the theme’s ending as their source. But the ultimate
improvements are already found on the same leaf as well. On leaf 10, bars 117ff. are
established: bars 117 and 119 already completely finished, but bars 120ff. still going
astray into uncertainty, although the fifth (redundant) entrance, even including the
metric adjustment,28 is established. Great progress is then shown on leaves 12 (verso)
and 13 (recto); there, among other things, we read the following for bars 119ff:
Fig. 78
For bars 128ff:
Fig. 79
28
[The abbreviation in bars 127–128—see p. 111.]
Fourth Movement 119
For the augmentation in bars 149ff. we find the draft:
Fig. 80
There too one sees the uninterrupted stream of sixteenths of bars 162ff. and the
remark “to E minor.”
The stretti in the last section of the Development occupy the master’s undivided
attention on leaf 4 (recto):
Fig. 81
and then on leaf 4 (verso), where, by way of a treatment in sixths with connecting
fifth-leaps as follows:
Fig. 82
the approach to the large arpeggiation of the dominant is sought. On leaf 14 (recto
and verso) the register c3 of bar 182 already appears, and also the passage of bars
182–188 even in the final version:
Fig. 83
An augmentation of the complete theme in a different form can be read on leaf 3

(verso):
Fig. 84
and similar material is found in addition on leaf 7 (verso) and 8 (recto and verso,
already in combination with great E).
The arpeggio running through both hands in bar 89 is logically shown in the
Autograph with only a fermata sign—such meticulousness on the master’s part even
in details like this! —, but only the Original Edition preserves the orthography. Bars
Fourth Movement 121
90 and 91 are separated only by a single bar line (compare Op. 109, first movement,
bar 15; Andante, connection of Variations II and III; Op. 110, last movement, bars
115–116). In bar 92 Beethoven writes the first entrance in the manner of a lowest voice,
thus with the stems downward; with the eighths, he uses strokes,29 not dots. In bars
121–122 I follow the original notation (which is retained also by the Original Edition)
in the ties [rather than quarter notes, as in other editions,] of the upper voice; they
make it actually visible how the tonal succession of bar 120 is stretched from point
to point. (That the expansion aims for a parallelism not to bar 120 alone but to the
two preceding bars 119 and 120, however, plays no role in this matter—see above, the
sketches.) In bars 123–125 the dynamic markings are clearly presented in the Autograph
as my text reproduces them. Accordingly, there is no doubt that Beethoven wanted
the redundant entrance in an ff, which was also to include three sf accents. But even
in the Original Edition the ff disappears, and in all other editions, all that remains is
the two sf accents on E and D in bars 123 and 125. In bar 129 Beethoven wants the sf
to apply only to the left hand; except for the Original Edition, however, there is none
that follows him in this. The master’s writing in bars 135–136—see my text—is again a
model of optical presentation: what belongs together is connected; what points ahead,
such as the last eighth of the bass in bar 136 in particular, is separated. The Original
Edition, then, offends against logic when it beams the last eighth of the left hand
together with the preceding ones. Worse offenses, certainly, are committed by the
other editions, including the Gesamtausgabe and Urtext, which do the same thing
and moreover sever the beaming in bar 135.30 Beethoven does not tie the last eighth
in the right hand in bar 136; clearly he was thinking of the motivic beginnings that
likewise enter freely in the subsequent bars. The Original Edition and Urtext eschew
the tie, which the Gesamtausgabe and all other editions, however, include.
The assignment in bar 141 of the inner voice to the lower system results from the
directive of the Autograph, which the Original Edition confirms. In bar 147 we see
in the left hand a notable revision by the master: . But since the Original
Edition includes precisely the stricken notes, it must surely have been Beethoven
himself who retracted the correction and committed himself to the original
tone-succession. In fact, a d in bar 147 before d in bar 148 in the same voice would
not have sounded exactly agreeable. Possibly it was the difficulty of technical execu-
tion that he hoped to avoid with the correction,31 but there unfortunately he jumped
29
[Represented in print as wedges.]
30
[The single beams in the left hand are each broken in the middle.]
31
[The correction in the manuscript—the replacement of the two sixteenths a—b with the single eighth
d—may have been intended rather to break up by contrary motion the accented fifths between the upbeat
of bar 147 and the downbeat of bar 148.]
from the frying pan into the fire. The appearance of bars 154–172 shows still in the
Autograph traces of greatest effort, many corrections, even supplementary notes on
empty lines. In bars 155–158 he continues the polyphonic notation in bass and inner
voice, but drops it in bars 158–160. The Original Edition (which Gesamtausgabe
and Urtext follow as well) already proves less conscientious in this; surprisingly,
Bülow and Klindworth restore the polyphonic notation and, going beyond the
master, adhere to it still in bars 158–160. In this point, however, the master’s instinct
was better; he sensed, indeed, what Bülow and Klindworth were not able to espy,
namely that in these bars it is a case not so much of two voices in a dialog but rather
of their moving simultaneously in thirds. When Beethoven separates the last eighth
in the right hand in bar 161 and accordingly divides the sixteenths as well, that again
shows the sensitivity of his orthography for the logic of the events. The Original
Edition follows the master only in regard to the eighths, other editions in none of
these matters. Beethoven’s notation is variable in bars 162–168, although the paral-
lelisms present call for the same notation. Thus he writes in the right hand in bar
162 an eighth-note a1, but in bar 166 a quarter-note c2 . The excellent notation in the
left hand in bar 162, obviously created on the spot, he abandons without apparent
reason in bar 166,32 and a similar variance unfortunately occurs also in the notation
of the right hand in bars 164 and 168 (the one in bar 168 is better).33 And then the
sforzati: it must be assumed that except for one in bar 168—which would be least
justified among them all—they are crossed out. One observes moreover the sign
above the sixteenths of the right hand in bars 164 and 168. The Original
Edition eliminates the contradictions in the notation of the sixteenth-note figures
of the right and left hand, but not that of the sf ’s, which, except for the one in bar
169 (!), it retains, while on the other hand it eliminates the signs ; in bar 166
it retains the notation of the c as a quarter. In making uniform the notation of the
2
corresponding points bars 162 and 166, also bars 164 and 168, the Original Edition
has undoubtedly done the right thing—the Autograph simply was not altogether
consistent —, but it appears to go wrong in the excision of the signs and
the indiscriminate inclusion of the sf ’s. When we consider that bars 162 and 166
bring seventh-chords, which are followed respectively in bars 164 and 168 by resolv-
ing triads, it follows that just because of the seventh, the sf ’s are justified only in the
former pair of bars—all the more so as they apply to the upbeat, which is thus in a
way tied over to the next bar, and this may then also have been the reason Beethoven
32
[The present score uses for the left hand in bar 162 the Autograph notation of bar 166 and—vice versa—for
bar 166 the “excellent” notation of the Autograph’s bar 162.]
33
[The present score does not follow the Autograph exactly in either bar.]
Fourth Movement 123
strikes the sf ’s in bar 164 and writes only the sign34 [sic] (recession from
the seventh). Obviously it is only an oversight, however, when in bar 168, despite
the sign, he still keeps the sf, precisely the one that he forgot to strike.35 The
other question concerning the eighth or quarter value of the c2 in bar 166 I believe
I can solve in the following way consistent with the master’s point of view: with the
quarter-note value, a transition is to be achieved from the eighth-note value of the
a1 of bar 162 to the tied quarters in bars 169, 170, [and] 171: it is as though the tones
were to strive gradually toward a longer duration so as later to be able to combine
with one another. Hence the decisiveness with which Beethoven demands the quar-
ter value in the Autograph: because of a correction to the sixteenth-note figure, he
even writes the upbeat of the bar twice, but both times with c2 as a quarter. Bülow
and Klindworth bring the upbeats of these two bars into agreement, specifically as
an eighth. Klindworth unfortunately goes still further by turning the uncontested
quarters in the right hand of bars 164 and 168 into eighths. As can be seen in com-
ment d on p. 16, Bülow calls for still another adjustment: “The editor leaves open the
question of whether a writing error may not have occurred and whether a different
reading, more suited to the usual manner of developing the motif, may not have
been intended, specifically:”
Fig. 85
This question can be answered easily: between d ♯ 1 of the right hand in the downbeat
of bar 162 and d ♯ 1 in the upbeat of bar 163, d1 in the position indicated is not pos-
sible. It is only by reason of oversight that a ♯ before f1 in bar 169 is lacking in the
Autograph; but it need by no means be an oversight that in bar 172 Beethoven places
no ♯ before the second sixteenth of the left hand, d1 (the Original Edition also gives
no ♯), since at this point he draws the figure from scale degree II [of the developing E
minor], in which d ♯ as yet has no place. Most significant, however, is that in the same
bar he sets a tie between the two a 2’s, in which he is followed by not a single edition,
not even the Original Edition. But it is this very tie which releases the pressure of all
34
[This noun is plural (die Zeichen) here and in the next sentence; perhaps Schenker was thinking in both
cases of the designated signs in both bars 164 and 168.]
35
[Nevertheless, the present score too retains this sf.]
preceding ties, and this tie deserves credit too for the liberating contrast effect that
we sense at the unsyncopated entrance [in the next bar] of the imitating inner voice.
Beethoven beams the tone e1 at the upbeat of bar 174 together with the preceding
eighths, and likewise for the left hand in bar 176. Unfortunately, all of these logi-
cal features and beauties of the notation are lost in the later editions; all show D ♯
instead of D in bar 172, omit the tie between the a2’s, and lengthen the eighth [e2]
in bar 174 to a quarter. Bülow and Klindworth feel it necessary in bar 172 moreover
to add, before the entry of the imitative inner voice, accompanying lower thirds. In
comment a, p. 17, Bülow attempts a justification: “The second half of the bar in the
upper system is conceived, it is perfectly clear, to be exactly the same as two bars later
in the lower system.” As to the need for the tone f ♯ 2 in bar 173 to appear fresh when
it enters, such a silly standpoint of the editor to appeal to the subsequent event, in
which freshness no longer plays any role! The two editors in question go still further,
however, in removing from the left hand in the downbeat of bar 174 the two eighths
b (here Bülow provides no justification; in this matter he could no longer manage
even silliness). Even if the diminished fifth c1 at the downbeat of bar 172 may have
found its way to b already in the upbeat of the same bar (although not explicitly),
and if it therefore may appear superfluous to state this tone expressly in bar 174, the
eighths in question are nevertheless of importance because of the two-voice treat-
ment of the imitating lower voices. For if it was ruled out here, because the lower
voice is involved, to write as in bar 172—that is, d1—c1 without accompanying lower
thirds—the lower voice still had to be motivated ahead of time from the standpoint
of sonority.
In the Autograph the exchange taking place between the third and fourth voices
in bars 178–179 was not represented, since the version given was:
Fig. 86
Only later did the master make the necessary adjustments, in pencil. In bar 191 the
Autograph is lacking a ♯ before f in the left hand (as is the Original Edition); the acci-
dental would surely have to be automatically understood, though, when we reflect
that the third that arrives at the last eighth must proceed to , which, however,
can be reached only by way of and not by way of , because in the latter case,
f would of course refer back to e. It was the master’s wish to have the annotation
“Contra E” in this bar included in the printed edition, and originally he wanted still
Fourth Movement 125
more, since a penciled comment36 in the Autograph contains the words: “Nb.: Die

Buchstaben auch im Stechen drunter—” (?).
Concerning performance, I agree completely with Bülow when he writes (p. 14,
note c):
Without thorough theoretical awareness of the nature of fugue, a correct

performance of this fugue can no more be expected than of a Bach fugue.
Among performing artists it is primarily the pianists from whom a mature
development of polyphonic tonal sensitivity is required. The technical
performance-study of this, as of any, fugue must be preceded by a painstaking
analysis.
But what can one say about the immediately following pronouncement?
Such a “labor of deconstruction” here offers no particular difficulties, and

the editor has not aimed in his work to teach what can be communicated to
the student by any good treatise on fugue or the oral instruction of a trained
piano pedagogue. Good instruction for correct piano performance of a fugue
in technical respects is given by Carl Czerny in his Kunst des Vortrags (Part
Four of the Pianoforte Schule), p. 122ff. Except that I would not recommend
adoption of the inconceivably wrong maxim of Czerny’s concerning the
inadmissibility of staccato in fugue playing. It is precisely by employment of
every variety of touch that one achieves that transparent explication of the
thematic content, that clear presentation of the intricate artistic fabric that
communication to the listener demands; and with correct usage of staccato,
it will more often be made possible to mark clearly a thematic entrance in an
inner voice, for example, without appealing to that unadulterated student’s
tone that usually spreads over the performance such an unaesthetic aroma of
journeymanship.
The argument, not only futile but occasionally even harmful, among
musical hacks over the advantages of the Bach or the Beethoven fugue will
be touched on here only to express our opinion on the latter with a single
remark.
36
We also read in the letter cited earlier to Haslinger (November 1816) “Send me at once the remain-
ing proofs—as far as p. 15 in the new piece is concerned, it may be well in bars 18, 19, 20, 21 to print the
letter-names—this should be left to the discretion of the adjutant.”
For Beethoven the fugal form is the same as what music itself is for Richard
Wagner’s dramatic poetry: not a goal in itself, but the ultimate and high-
est resource for intensification of expression. Thus the passionate, in a way
electrical, character of the Beethoven fugue, which does not compete at all
with that objective, “purer,” classical formal beauty of the Bach end-in-itself
fugue. (To capture this character naturally intensifies the technical task of
the player considerably, while on the other hand it helps to ease these dif-
ficulties through engagement of the “emotional” interest when the player
applies himself fully to the task.) In treating the closing fugues in the sonatas
Op. 106 and Op. 110 (where the poet shows still another new side of him-
self), we will have occasion to add many supplementary comments to these
general observations.
Such overestimation of “any good treatise on fugue,” of the trained piano peda-
gogue; and such devaluation of the Beethoven genius! If it were as Bülow thinks,
would there have been any reason whatever to undertake new editions? And
how little truth in the claim that a painstaking analysis of this Development
poses no difficulty will be seen, incidentally, below in the “Literature” sec-
tion, where consideration will be given not only to the “any good,” but to what
is generally considered the best from day before yesterday, from yesterday, and
from today.
Let the performer above all achieve complete assimilation of the master’s
dynamic markings, which in their way, as I have often said, reinforce the con-
tent. The whole exposition is set in sempre pp, and we find the first crescendo not
before the fourth entrance, bar 114; it leads to f in bar 117, and, according to the
Autograph, to ff at the fifth entrance in bar 123, which is reduced only in bar 136
by means of a dim. to p at the beginning of the middle section in bar 141. Now
a crescendo in bar 149 leads again to f in bar 150, which, except for a few brief p
shadings in bars 165, 169, [and] 179 to 182, remains the basic dynamic coloration
of the second and third sections. The final crescendo in bar 182 leads to ff in bar
191. When we compare with these dynamic markings those in the master’s other
fugues (compare Op. 110), we obtain a further contribution to the understanding
of how Beethoven imagined the performance of a fugue in general—how com-
pletely it differs from what we are accustomed to hearing, for example, in the per-
formance of the Bach fugues, which have unfortunately come down to us without
performance marking.
The trill in the fugal theme, bar 96, etc., may be the very shortest, especially in bars
145 and 147; the execution recommended by Bülow (p. 14, comment b) is already
Fourth Movement 127
too impractical: “this trill must always be initiated with the main tone, because the
voice leading otherwise would be weakly blurred. Execution:” .
In the expansion of bars 128ff., the player should “push” the masses of sonority
ahead of himself, as though eager to reach bar 137. Bülow writes concerning bars
150ff.:
The quarter notes at the beginning of each bar, alternating between the upper
and lower voices of the right hand, must not be treated as eighths. Thus the
rather “unpianistic” fingering, which, incidentally, cannot be replaced in poly-
phonic pieces by the Clementi-Czerny “pianistic” one without disadvantage
for characteristic reproduction. [P. 17, note c.]
This, at the least, is a superfluous instruction; after all, an application of pressure, as

Bülow recommends for the quarters here, is a requirement not only in performance
of a fugal but of any other piano texture, outside of the fugue as well. The sf ’s in bars
162 and 166 must not be made sharp or piercing; they must rather sound expres-
sive and warm, as though followed by a (see above for the rationale). High
performance-art is required, to be sure, to render the tying of the two a 2’s in bar 172
in keeping with its meaning as described above: an event long expected and now
having arrived must be brought to consciousness as such. Only the fingering I have
recommended for bars 192 and 193—the second finger on g ♯—embodies the truth of
a reference to the first eighth d ♯ in bar 194, to which now no other finger than the
first can be assigned. In bars 196–199, each successive downbeat must be emphasized
in the left hand.
Bar
Reprise. The beginning of the Reprise unfolds exactly as that of the First Part; 200ff.
but the consequent strain is subjected to a significant abbreviation, which on

the other hand is compensated by a more eventful polyphonic texture. Thus
immediately at the beginning of the consequent in bar 208, the motif in the bass
is counterpointed, as though in echo of the counter-plays of the Development,
by its inversion in the soprano. This, however—since the rhythms of the two
run parallel—would have produced a poor effect had not an imitation com-
menced in the inner voice at the fourth eighth, which, through the comple-
mentarity of its rhythm, rescued the integrity of the counterpoint. As to the
intervals, the two counterpoints of course supplement each other to produce
the sixths37 as shown by the voice leading in bars 9–12 and 25–28. The ascending
37
[With intervening seventh-suspensions.]
line that begins in bar 212 shows here, by contrast to that in the First Part, three
entrances. From bar 216 on the continuation is in three voices, while the triad of
the tonic gains as an additional member the seventh, which provides a convey-
ance to the subdominant. In bar 220 we arrive at the thematic idea which in the
First Part brought in the modulation. The modulation theme is thus repeated,
but in such a way that it is woven in as an inner voice; the pianistic style elevates
it temporarily into the three-line octave. The following sketch provides infor-
mation about the further alterations in comparison to the corresponding pas-
sage of the First Part:
Fig. 87
From bar 234 on the course of the Reprise follows exactly that of the First Part.
Fourth Movement 129
Regarding the Reprise, we find valuable contributions in the sketches. Thus we

read, for example, the following on leaf 3 (verso) for bars 207ff.:
Fig. 88
The intended route by way of the subdominant is first planned as follows on leaf 7
(recto) and 8 (recto):
Fig. 89
All the more astonishing, then, when the following shape emerges unexpectedly on
leaf 8 (verso) and 9 (recto), already finished and clearly dashed off in the heat of the
moment:
Fig. 90
In the Autograph the fingering for the bars from 216 to 219 inclusive is still lacking;
but as it is included in the Original Edition, it must have been entered there by the
master himself.
The a2 of the right hand in bars 221, 222, 225, and 226 is written by Beethoven
again as (compare bars 34ff.), and the Original Edition follows him in this except
for bar 221, where it gives—obviously by oversight—an . Again as in the First Part
Fourth Movement 131
he makes use of 5—6 in bar 229 (d1—e1 in the left hand); this passage is presented
correctly by the Original Edition and also by Bülow, but unfortunately not by the
remaining editions, including the Gesamtausgabe38 and the Urtext.
Coda. A sketch of the Urlinie may accompany us also on our journey through
the Coda:
Fig. 91-1
38
[This, on the contrary, is correctly presented in the Gesamtausgabe.]
Fig. 91-2
The concluding tones B—A of the soprano (bars 269–270) are taken over in bar 271
by the lower voice and give the latter—itself a descent—the incentive to descend
still further, as far as the dominant (linear progression through the fourth), which
is reached in bar 291. The lower voice, to be sure, presents only A—( )—F ♯—F—E,
which has to do with the fact that by reason of the tonicization process I&7—IV, the
upper line incorporated the seventh, G, which, as seventh, could not also be presented
in the lower voice. But fundamentally the upper line too makes the same falling jour-
ney from a to e, a kind of unisono of the outer lines, which—with altogether brilliant
handling of the tonal registers, of course—could be most astonishingly concealed:
Fig. 92
The two ff strokes in bars 281–282 at first can certainly be heard as pointing to nothing
other than the IV. After suspense-filled rests, an F sounds in bar 284. Is it perhaps the
third of a minor subdominant? Again a rest, which increases the suspense, and now the
first theme enters in bar 286 within the F triad. Here one might feel tempted to take
the tone F for nothing less than the root of a &VI (mixture), especially as the response
in bars 288–289 also confirms the F triad. Only in bars 290–291 does the mystery
clear up: the tone F merely passes through between F ♯ and E of the line, and it is only
for the sake of deception or—which comes to the same thing—suspense that the first
theme is expressly so imposed onto the passing tone as to make the latter appear called
into service as a scale degree. But how many advantages for synthesis grow out of this!
Fourth Movement 133
Over a temporal distance as substantial as that from bar 90 to bar 282, the postulate
of parallelism is fulfilled, and both formal parts, Development and Coda, derive their
benefits from it. From bar 90 a light falls on bar 282 and vice versa: the Development
occupies a fixed pivot point, no less the Coda. We grasp that exactly as in bar 90 the
Development is separated from the transition by the ff stroke, now clearly in bar 282
the real Coda theme is first announced by the ff stroke, regardless of the fact that the
Coda was under way already from bar 271. Apart from the self-interest of the bass
tones (see Harmony, p. 251ff./332ff.), the captivating effect of the sudden ff and the
ensuing rests is so irresistible that we feel impelled in spite of ourselves at first to posit
a scale degree on C in the former case and on F in the latter. What these tones actu-
ally signify I have explained above. (By no means is Bülow correct when he states on
p. 20, comment b, that “here one must think not of F ♯ minor, but of D major—later
D minor—[!!] as underlying harmony.”) But this parallelism, certainly, has yielded
for the organic synthesis of the Coda proper the additional advantage that the first
theme now has pretext and leisure, as it were, to intrude once again into the content
and to entice us gently toward the thematic idea that was a member of its retinue back
in the First Part, bar 17. Now too it is clear why, at the beginning of the Reprise, the
first theme was relieved of this very component: it serves in the Coda to animate the
closing theme. How the latter is to be read is shown in the sketch: as though conscious
of the windfall for synthesis, the tones still assemble, in the final dying away, into ante-
cedent and consequent (bars 293–299 and 300–308 respectively). In bars 298–299 the
original tonal succession d2—c ♯ 2 is expanded seemingly by three tones, which, con-
tinuing the c ♯ 2 of bar 298, are reminiscent of the first theme of bars 1–4, but basically,
as we shall see shortly, it is all about only the tone b1. The growth arises with a half
cadence and necessitates (as a cause but no doubt also as a result) a reinterpretation of
the weak bar 298 to a strong one, which now explains the bar-triplet 297–299. By no
means incidental to this is the enlargement of the sixteenth-note motif:
Fig. 93
In the consequent it is apparent at bar 306 that the line seeks an escape from b1 to
either a1 or c ♯ 2 , so as to cadence either on the tonic tone itself or on the third of the
tonic (imperfect authentic cadence). It decides in favor of c ♯ 2 , to which it leads in bar
307 in the most delicate portamento (the sixteenth-note motif, as though animated
by the preceding enlargement, falls in bar 308 on the downbeat!). But whether com-
ing from d2 , as in bars 294 [and] 301, or from b1, as just here in bar 308, c ♯ 2 falls in
each case on a weak bar (the second and fourth of the metric bar group). Now sud-
denly a marvel: the bass tone of the organ point, contra A, appears in bar 315 in a
strong bar and infuses the c ♯ 2 still suspended in the line with metric strength as well.
An enlargement of the Coda motif follows:
Fig. 94
which now, differently from before, brings d on a third (weak) bar and c ♯ on a first
(strong) one. Just as c ♯ 2 is prepared to appear a fourth time on the strong bar, an out-
burst of high spirits impels it into the ff arpeggiation of the final chord in bars 327ff.
The fifth-leap e3—a 2 in bars 308, 310, etc. signifies the final expansion of the first
two tones of the first theme. A fivefold plunge of such fifth-motifs leads to the con-
tra octave in bar 315; here the bass tone A1 rests (not a trill—see Ornamentation,
p. 34/71f.). The question of whether here an organ point on the I is to be assumed
or whether, because of E1 in bars 318, 322, 324, [and] 326, such an assumption is to
be rejected must for the following reasons be resolved in favor of the organ point.
It is clear that in bars 315–319 the succession I—IV—V—I is projected and that as a
result the primary requirement for an organ point has been met; the E1 does count
as the root of a dominant, but actually one standing an octave higher, and perhaps
even to be considered the head of a fifth-motif—compare bars 313, 314, [and] 315:
Fig. 95
E1, situated as it is below the bass tone of the organ point, does of course take on
the appearance of a scale degree as though it would cancel the organ point; but
then G ♯ 1 would count as the leading tone, which thus would necessarily show a
doubling in the upper voice. But our instinct strongly resists such an interpreta-
tion of the neighboring tone G ♯ 1 as a leading tone and we reserve that significance
instead for the higher voices. The ultimate reason, though, that Beethoven had to
decide against writing as above in Fig. 95, is of course that the fifth would have
been too much lost in the organ point as merely one of its constituents. Thus all
that remains to be explained is why in bar 324 the sixteenth-note motion abruptly
stops, and likewise in bar 326. At the turn of bars 326–327 the hiatus to which two
successive A1’s would inevitably have led had to be avoided. Now it did not tax
Beethoven’s genius in the least to find a way to prepare in advance for this neces-
sity and thereby at the same time to give it a rationale. Ah, what marvels issue
Fourth Movement 135
from parallelism, from repetition in music—but who besides the genius is capable
of exhibiting these marvels!
It is to the Coda that what we read in the sketches on leaf 3 (verso) pertains:
Fig. 96
The path by way of the F triad is sought in various ways (leaf 3, recto):
Fig. 97
Leaf 4 (recto):
Fig. 98
Leaf 12 (recto):
Fig. 99
Fourth Movement 137
Here a contribution to bar 307 on leaf 5 (recto):

Fig. 100
For the organ point of bars 315ff., first of all the following expressive strain was
drafted:
Fig. 101
On the final leaves of the sketchbook, leaf 15 (recto and verso) and leaf 16 (recto), the
master writes the Reprise from bar 235 through the Coda and to the end continu-
ously and in final form, almost exclusively in the soprano alone, but here and there
also only in the lower system. Still particularly noteworthy in this final presenta-
tion, however, as the continuation of bars 305–306:
Fig. 102
is the far too precipitous conclusion:
Fig. 103
But immediately, then, the next lines show the following:
Fig. 104
where in the second and sixth bars the upper notes, as the final correction entered
in pencil, are of course to be read in the bass clef. Lastly, the annotation to bars
312–315:
Fig. 105
Fourth Movement 139
The polyphonic notation of bars 285–291,39 as given by the Autograph (see my text),
has unfortunately been adopted by no other edition. The modifications in the artic-
ulation of the motif in bars 293–294 in comparison to bars 17–18 and the other anal-
ogous places, and also in comparison to bars 295–296, have to do with the change in
the circumstances under which it is presented here in bars 293–294: the customary
staccato upbeat e2 is after all swept up in this case into the legato sixteenth-note
group of bar 292, so that there was no longer any reason to have d2 stand alone; but
it is precisely from the legato that encompasses the two bars that their intimate and
special expression derives. In bar 299 the master notates the sixteenth-note g ♯ 1 in
the right hand at the same time also as an ♪, a brilliant stroke of notation aimed
toward the portamento effect (g ♯ 1—e2). Not even the Original Edition could man-
age to include this exquisite feature; it thus appears for the first time in my text. Bar
305 shows the master’s difficulty in notating the trill. First he writes , which is
incorrect because of the eighth-note value; next he draws in a sixteenth-note beam
in pencil: , which, because of the dot, is again flawed. Only the Original Edition
put matters in order by omitting the dot. The original fingering for bar 308 appears
for the first time in the Original Edition. The original fingering in any case, how-
ever, bears witness against all of the various simplifications that editors have recom-
mended in place of the original manner of notation and performance. The beams
for the fifth-leaps in bars 312–314 are given by my text according to Autograph and
Original Edition; unfortunately, they are absent from the later editions. In bar 315
the p is shown only by the Original Edition; but the latter disfigures the master’s
beautiful polyphonic notation in bars 316–322 as it is given in the Autograph. This
notation is admittedly damaged still further in the more recent editions, which, at
the expense of the optical effect, notate all voices above the organ point only in the
upper system throughout. The Autograph is scrupulously accurate in demanding
the eighth-note value for the last contra G ♯ in the left hand in bars 324 and 326, as is
also the Original Edition.
Performance of the Coda too must assume and give expression to its beginning
already at bar 271 and not just at the ff strokes in bar 281. True, the sound in bars
271–280 is still the same as in bar 270, but from the standpoint of form, something
new is already afoot, and even the line (see above) stands at this point under the
aegis of the descent to the dominant. Thus Bülow’s comment to bar 285 (p. 20, c) is
essentially wrong:
The interpretation of the first eight bars of the Coda as a humoristic threat to
the listener that he would have to expect a repetition of the fugato (as is the
39
[The downward stemming of the bass.]
editor’s practice in performing it) should not be misconstrued as frivolous. For

another reason too—that of perspicuous rendering of the re-modulation to the
main key, which at last brings satisfaction to the ear—a certain holding-back is
to be recommended, which the listener translates into suspense that achieves
resolution only with the comforting return and replaying of the cantabile
theme from the first section of the Finale.
That a state of suspense, an illusion intended by the composer, is intrinsic to the

bars under discussion certainly has not been lost on Bülow, and he does not express
it badly in his way. But that notwithstanding, he fails to go beyond the raw and
all too simple fact of this first effect when, as can be gathered from his comment,
he places the beginning of the Coda not until bar 285, thus at the tone F, which
is after all the penultimate tone of the linear progression through the fourth
A—G—F—E. That a certain holding-back is appropriate in bars 285–289 fol-
lows directly from the intention of illusion, which the performer here must make
his own as well, regardless of who the object of the illusion may be—whether he
himself or any arbitrarily chosen listener. For the sake of the cadence, which gives
bars 292–299 a certain rounding off, there must be also a slight slackening of
tempo from the second eighth of bar 299, accordingly performed as ,
but not as Bülow recommends, which is completely pointless and
meaningless. The portamento effect at the last eighth of bar 299 will come about
automatically in the most marvelous way if only the eighth-note value specified by
the master is observed.
In bar 305 the trill, even if played in the shortest possible form, should be kept
completely distinct from the figure , as Klindworth unfortunately has
incorporated into the text. (Concerning the difference, compare Ornamentation,
p. 137/71f.) On the contrary it is advisable here, once the trill has begun with the
main note, to play as though out of freest and richest delicacy approximately as
follows: , regardless of the notation, which has no means of expressing
such a demand. (Hence also the master’s difficulty in notation mentioned above.)
The notation here rather remains in its domain correct in the form given by the
Original Edition, but by no means constitutes a contradiction of the execution
I have recommended. Thus let the player just expressly take the leisure for this exe-
cution, the leisure for intimacy, and not complain like Bülow (note a, p. 21), who
writes: “There is not enough time for a quintuplet. The editor recommends either
or , which latter would be preferable, in order to begin the orna-
ment with the main tone.” Since the exigency posed by technical difficulty in bars
307–310 is undoubtedly great, let that fingering be appreciated which attempts to
conquer this difficulty in an honorable way; just stay away from the simplification
Fourth Movement 141
(see above) that tries to cover up the difficulty. The technical difficulty here, under-
stood also in a psychological sense, is a constituent part of the content, of the very
content itself, as actually always holds true with the great masters. It is not their way
to create technical difficulties only to exercise the fingers, but to have the difficul-
ties survived and overcome as psychological difficulties, just as the masters them-
selves have survived and overcome them. Within the large bar group of bar 315 to
the cadence, bars 315, 319, and 323 should be underscored as respectively the first of
the three four-bar groups by a light pressure at the first sixteenth of the left hand in
each case. And don’t be afraid to pedal just at the contra E in bars 318, 322, etc. (but
only for the duration of these bars): in this way the effect of will be produced,
which makes the rhythmic structure of the four-bar group more accessible to us.
Editions consulted, and Facsimiles
Original Edition: Vienna: S. A. Steiner, [1817].

Gesamtausgabe: Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1862–1888.
Other Editions
d’Albert, Eugen. Leipzig: Forberg, n.d.

Bülow, Hans von. Stuttgart: Cotta, ca. 1875.
Klindworth, Karl. Berlin: Bote & Bock, n.d.
“Peters.” Leipzig: C. F. Peters, n.d.
Reinecke, Carl. Volks-Ausgabe. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, n.d.
“Urtext” (edited by Carl Krebs). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1898.
“Vienna Conservatory Edition” (edited by Julius Epstein). Leipzig: Cranz, n.d.
Facsimile
Klaviersonate A-dur opus 101. Faksimile nach dem Autograph im Besitz des Beethoven-
Hauses Bonn. Munich: Henle, 1998.
143
Bibliogr aphy of Cited Wor ks
by Heinr ich Schenker
Citation Form Title

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Edition, 1913.
1092 2nd, abridged, ed. Edited by O. Jonas. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1971.
110 Erläuterungs-Ausgabe der Sonate As Dur, Op. 110. Vienna: Universal

Edition, 1914.
111 Erläuterungs-Ausgabe der Sonate C Moll, Op. 111. Vienna: Universal

Edition, 1915.
101 Erläuterungs-Ausgabe der Sonate A Dur, Op. 101. Vienna: Universal

Edition, 1921.
145
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Ninth Symphony Beethovens neunte Sinfonie. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1912. 2nd ed.
as Wiener Urtext Ausgabe. Edited by Karl Heinz Füssl and H. C.
Robbins Landon. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1969. Translated
and edited by J. Rothgeb as Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Octaves and Fifths Johannes Brahms: Oktaven u. Quinten. Vienna: Universal Edition,

1933. Translated and annotated by P. Mast, as “Brahms’s Study,
Octaven u. Quinten u. A. with Schenker’s Commentary Translated,”
in The Music Forum. Vol. 5. New York: Columbia University Press,
1979.
Chromatic Fantasy J. S. Bach: Chromatische Phantasie und Fuge. Vienna: Universal

Edition, 1909. Translated and edited by Hedi Siegel, as J. S. Bach’s
Chromatic Fantasy, and Fugue: Critical Edition with Commentary.
New York: Longman, 1984.
C. P. E. Bach’s Phil. Em. Bach: Klavierwerke (selections). 3 vols. Vienna: Universal

Klavierwerke Edition, 1902. 2nd ed., 2 vols. Vienna: Universal Edition, n.d.
Tonwille Der Tonwille. Flugblätter zum Zeugnis unwandelbarer Gesetze der

Tonkunst. Vol. 8/9 (Apr./Sept., 1924). Vienna: Gutmann, 1924.
Harmony Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien I: Harmonielehre.

Stuttgart: Cotta, 1906. Edited by O. Jonas, translated by E. M.
Borgese, as Harmony. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1954.
Counterpoint Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien II: Kontrapunkt. 2

books. Vienna: Universal-Edition, 1910, 1922. Edited by J. Rothgeb,
translated by J. Rothgeb and J. Thym as Counterpoint Book I, II.
New York: Shirmer Books, 1987. 2nd, corrected, ed. Ann Arbor,
MI: Musicalia Press, 2001.
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Masken Verlag, 1925, 1926, 1930. Edited by W. Drabkin, translated
by I. Bent et. al. as The Masterwork in Music. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 1994, 1996, 1997.
Free Composition Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien III: Der freie Satz.
Vienna: Universal Edition, 1935. 2nd, abridged, ed. Edited by O. Jonas.
Vienna: Universal Edition, 1956. Translated and edited by Ernst
Oster as Free Composition. New York: Longman, 1979.
Ornamentation Ein Beitrag zur Ornamentik. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1904.
Translated and edited by H. Siegel as “A Contribution to the Study of
Ornamentation,” in The Music Forum, vol. IV. New York: Columbia
University Press, 1976.
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Lady [Grace] Wallace. 2 vols. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1867.
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an afterword and an index by Sieghard Brandenburg. Munich: Verlag Emil Katzbichler, 1976.
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Germany: Friedrich Cohen, 1895.
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——. Beethovens sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Ausgabe mit Erläuterungen von Alf. Chr. Kalischer.
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Index
antecedent, 22–24, 41, 76, 88, 89, 133 composing out, 22, 42, 53, 63, 64, 112
augmentation, 93, consequent, 21
Autograph
ambiguity in, 98 Development
compared to other sources, 57–58, 65–66, in the first movement, 35–38, 84
79–80, 97–99, 120, 121, 122, 122n32, in the fourth movement, 104–109, 119, 126,
122n33, 123, 124, 125, 126, 130, 139 127, 133
correction in, 40
confirmation of, 99 enlargement, 24, 39, 41, 42, 43, 54, 89, 96, 99,
disregarded by editions, 44 114, 133, 134
heading of, 28 expansion, 24, 25, 27, 37, 87, 96, 97, 101, 111, 112,
and the law of release, 44 121, 127, 134
orthography in, 43
as source, 3, 29–33, 38, 39–40 fingering, 10, 60, 80, 83, 100, 102–103, 127, 130, 139
First Part
Bach, C. P. E., 80 In the first movement, 22, 35, 41, 44
Bach, J. S., 81, 125–126 in the fourth movement, 84, 97, 104, 105, 127,
bar line, 79, 121 128, 130
Brahms, Johannes, 7, 15 first theme, 21, 22, 23, 37, 38, 41, 42, 71,
von Bülow, Hans, 31, 34, 39, 66, 67, 79, 81, 82, 88, 90, 95, 96, 99, 103, 104, 109, 112,
98, 100, 101, 102, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 132, 133, 134
131, 133, 139, 140 fugal procedure, 84, 103, 104–105, 111, 115, 125,
126, 139
closing theme, 28, 88, 95–96, 103, 133 harmony, 24, 28, 34, 37, 48, 54, 57, 74, 77, 88n2,
Coda, 41, 44, 84, 131–135, 137, 139, 140 89, 91n6, 111, 112, 133
151
152 Index
Gesamtausgabe, 30, 33, 39, 40, 44, 57, 58, 65, 66, performance, 10, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 44–45,
97, 98, 99, 121, 122, 131, 131n38 59–61, 66–67, 80–83, 99–100, 101n12, 102,
Goethe, 10, 12, 14, 16n18 125–127, 139–141
piano writing, 26, 27, 45, 54, 74, 78, 81
Haydn, Franz Josef, 78
register, 27, 28, 39, 41, 48, 52n10, 56, 61, 74, 89,
Jonas, Oswald, 7n4 92, 112, 120
Reinecke, Carl, 57, 58, 65, 66, 78, 97, 98, 99
Klindworth, Karl, 39, 44n15, 57, 58, 65, 66, 78, Reprise, 3, 32, 37, 38, 41, 44, 84, 99, 105, 115,
79, 83, 97, 98, 99, 102, 122, 123, 124, 140 127–131, 133, 137
Lessing,Gotthold Ephraim, 11, 11n12 scale degree, 9, 24, 25, 34, 38, 45, 48, 50n7,
52–53, 56, 63, 64, 71, 72, 74, 88, 89, 94, 96,
Mendelssohn, Felix, 90n5 114, 114n26, 123, 132, 133, 134
meter, 28, 92, 111, 114 second theme, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 34, 41, 88, 90,
modulation, 21, 22, 23, 34, 88, 90, 91, 103, 104, 90n5, 91, 95, 96, 97
105, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 128, 140 sketches
motif, 9, 21, 22, 23, 27, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 44n15, 50, to the first movement, 3, 8, 25, 27, 36
52, 53, 57, 59–61, 63, 64, 65, 67, 74, 76, 77, 88, to the second movement, 46, 54, 57, 59, 64
89, 90, 93, 94, 95, 97, 98, 103, 127, 133, 134, 139 to the fourth movement, 84, 88, 90, 92, 97,
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 78 99, 105, 109, 115, 117, 129–130, 135, 137
song form
notation, 5, 14, 30, 31, 32–33, 35, 43, 57–60, 78, 79, two-part, 88, 88n1
81, 97–99, 102, 121, 122, 122n32, 124, 139, 140 three-part, 46, 61, 63, 88n1
syncope, 99
Original Edition, 3, 4, 5, 7, 29–32, 38, 39, 40, 43,
44, 57, 59, 66, 78–80, 97–99, 120–122, 123, tempo, 29, 33, 37n13, 45, 57, 60, 60n17, 77, 78,
124, 130–131, 139, 140 82, 83, 86, 140
ornamentation, 48, 140 tonicization, 50n7, 132
orthography, 43, 66, 120, 122. See also notation
voice leading, 9, 15, 22, 30, 40, 48, 50, 54, 56, 63,
passing motion, 24–25, 25n2, 25n3, 33, 40, 48, 49, 73, 89, 92, 93, 97, 98, 99, 112, 127
53, 54, 59, 59n14, 64, 74, 90, 91, 94, 112, 132
pedal, 35, 44, 45, 60, 78, 79, 81, 101, 141 Wagner, Richard, 15, 101, 101n11

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Piano Sonata in A Major, Op.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Music engraving by Woytek Rynczak, W. R. Music Service

Editions consulted, and Facsimiles 143

The unprecedented compression of sonata form in the first movement of Op. 101

That I have for critical purposes consulted, in addition to these basic

To the same recipient, July 26, 1809 (Sämtliche Briefe, p. 283):

Here a goodly portion of the misprints (specifically in the cello sonata), to

And again, “second winter month of 1809” (Sämtliche Briefe, p. 294):

But what mainly warrants our application of strict requirements, of definitive

What we like best is involvement with the genius: for he is disposed by excel-

Kant too says the same thing:

Ein Geist, den die Natur zum Mustergeist beschloß,

(A Spirit which Nature has designated as a model

Or obliterates commas, periods, as in:

At this opportunity let my warmest thanks be expressed to Mr. Louis Koch in

and if immediately afterward bars 3–4 present an inversion of the line:

in which, moreover, bars 2 and 4 chime together in a rhyme-like manner—the

Here we discern an enlargement of bar 2, which corresponds to the expansion of

in which the IV is entered upon by means of a suspended passing-tone harmony in

through a technique of exchange and repositioning,2 which springs in equal measure

The subsequent improvement then entailed reduction of b1 of the left hand to an

means of a merely moderate ritardando. Otherwise he runs the risk of exaggerating

Such logic and daring, though, just in the succession of harmonies:

A perfectly wonderful monument to Beethoven’s unsurpassable art of elevating the

The second movement, with its march-like character, exhibits three-part

As it shows, the voice leading in bars 1–4 is based on a fourth-progression F—C of

a form involving rhythmic displacement is used:]

Unfortunately, the majority of editions (the Gesamtausgabe, Klindworth, Peters,

, then similarly later in all analogous passages as well. It makes a

The rationale is this: first, the fourfold application of quintuplet grouping defines

must intrinsically contradict it. As confirmation of this, see, for example,

The central nerve of the movement, then, is shown to be a counter-play of two

This now yields conclusions about the form as well:

of a motif whose connection to:

which actually derives from the [syncopated] passing-tone technique 5—6—5—

understood? Only a thoroughgoing consideration of the voice leading in all of

but then the following as well:

In the specifically humoristic or rather gay allegro-movements of Beethoven

Here is his notational text, which I cite as a tone-optical monstrosity, a veritable

• First entrance: A minor to C major

bar 188 190 191

but already the following, to be sure, as well:

until finally, still on leaf 3, he closely approaches the final version.

and along these lines for the third entrance as well:

For the augmentation in bars 149ff. we find the draft:

An augmentation of the complete theme in a different form can be read on leaf 3

more, since a penciled comment36 in the Autograph contains the words: “Nb.: Die

Without thorough theoretical awareness of the nature of fugue, a correct

Such a “labor of deconstruction” here offers no particular difficulties, and

This, at the least, is a superfluous instruction; after all, an application of pressure, as

but the consequent strain is subjected to a significant abbreviation, which on

Regarding the Reprise, we find valuable contributions in the sketches. Thus we