Фортепианная соната № 32 до минор, соч. 111 Людвига ван Бетховена

Piano sonata written by Beethoven

The Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111, is the last of Ludwig van Beethoven's piano sonatas. The work was written between 1821 and 1822. Like other late period sonatas, it contains fugal elements. It was dedicated to his friend, pupil, and patron, Archduke Rudolf. The sonata consists of only two contrasting movements. The second movement is marked as an arietta with variations. Thomas Mann called it "farewell to the sonata form". The work entered the repertoire of leading pianists only in the second half of the 19th century. Rhythmically visionary and technically demanding, it is one of the most discussed of Beethoven's works.

Beethoven conceived of the plan for his final three piano sonatas (Op. 109, 110 and 111) during the summer of 1820, while he worked on his Missa solemnis. Although the work was only seriously outlined by 1819, the famous first theme of the allegro ed appassionato was found in a draft book dating from 1801 to 1802, contemporary to his Second Symphony. Moreover, the study of these draft books implies that Beethoven initially had plans for a sonata in three movements, quite different from that which we know: it is only thereafter that the initial theme of the first movement became that of the String Quartet No. 13, and that what should have been used as the theme with the adagio—a slow melody in A—was abandoned. Only the motif planned for the third movement, the famous theme mentioned above, was preserved to become that of the first movement. The Arietta, too, offers a considerable amount of research on its themes; the drafts found for this movement seem to indicate that as the second movement took form, Beethoven gave up the idea of a third movement, the sonata finally appearing to him as ideal. Along with Beethoven's 33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op. 120 (1823) and his two collections of bagatelles—Op. 119 (1822) and Op. 126 (1823)—the sonata was one of Beethoven's last compositions for piano. Nearly ignored by contemporaries, it was not until the second half of the 19th century that it found its way into the repertoire of most leading pianists.

Duration of roughly 7–11 minutes. The first movement, like many other works by Beethoven in C minor, is stormy and impassioned—the tempo markings may be translated, respectively, as "majestic" and "brisk, with vigor and passion". It abounds in diminished seventh chords, as in for instance the first full bar of its opening introduction, which may have provided the inspiration for the introduction of Chopin's Second Piano Sonata:

Unlike Beethoven's other C minor sonata form movements, the exposition of this movement moves to the submediant (A major), not to the mediant, as its second key area. The quiet second theme bears a resemblance to the second theme in the final movement of the fourteenth piano sonata, made even more explicit in the recapitulation where this theme is restated ominously in the bass in minor mode, after initially appearing in C major. Overall, the first movement contains motivic similarities with Mozart's Adagio and Fugue in C minor, which Beethoven arranged for a string quartet (Hess 37). The A major closing theme of the exposition, based on the first motif of the first theme, initiates a chromatic descent to its dominant with the motif A–C–G – and the same motif appears in the theme's restatement in the recapitulation, this time at the culmination of the chromatic descent instead of at the beginning. This moment is also prepared by the inclusion of the minor mode inflected flattened sixth (F) at the corresponding point in the exposition's closing theme. In a move that mirrors the Piano Sonata, Op. 49 No. 1, and the Cello Sonata, Op. 5 No. 2, Beethoven ends this movement with a Picardy third that directly prepares the major mode finale.