OPUS 54 – Sonata in F major for piano, op. 54, second half of 1804, published in Vienna, Bureau d’arts et d’industrie, April 1806. GA. n. 145 (series 16/22) – B. 54 – KH. 54 – L. II, p. 279 – N. 54 – T. 114

The original manuscript is unknown. Sketches for the second movement can be found in the Fidelio sketchbook. This is a curious work, and one not easily understood, due to the mechanical, cerebral, and anti-passionate elements—so uncharacteristic of Beethoven—that it contains. Only two other sonatas (not counting those of op. 49, too youthful in character, and that of op. 111, too much of an “outlier”) were composed by Beethoven in just two movements: op. 74, in F-sharp major, dedicated to Therese Brunsvik, and op. 90, in E minor, dedicated to Moritz Lichnowsky. In the latter, the witty and delicate content, together with its reduced proportions, conveys a sense of spiritual and formal perfection. By contrast, the present sonata could almost be regarded as the sketch or fragment of something more expansive, yet left unfinished.

The opening theme of the first movement evokes the idea of a minuet of quiet grace, though with a somewhat stern expression. The same cannot be said of the following episode, with its triplet figuration, marked forte and staccato, developed in imitation at the octave both in direct and contrary motion, and further sharpened by sforzati that stand in stark contrast to the ternary accentuation of the metre. This episode might be described as “awkward,” like the sudden intrusion of incoherent shouting in the midst of a serene conversation. But the minuet theme prevails, reasserting itself with greater melodic fluidity after this outburst, and even more so following a second, lesser eruption of the same material. Finally, it unfolds in the conclusion with a certain victorious gravity, soaring above the submissive murmuring of the opposing voice in triplets in the low F. On the whole, this represents a “conflict of principles” resolved, as in many other and greater Beethovenian works, through the triumph of one over the other—but without evoking a true clash of passionate forces, which the musical material would not be capable of supporting.

To define its “category”, Rosenberg’s comparison is useful: he recalls the episode of La Belle et la Bête in Ravel’s Ma mère l’Oye, where the music portrays the gradual taming of the Beast before the grace of the liberating Princess.

The roughness and delicacy articulated in the first movement through the juxtaposition and contrast of two distinct musical elements, appear in the second movement more subtly interwoven, developed through a single thematic idea: a moving figure that traverses the entire piece, coloured by various shades of light and giving rise to small episodic motifs, in a continuous process of condensation and dissolution of different tonal characters, up to the conclusion of the Presto.

Based on various analogies in the musical elements, Rosenberg links this movement to the same conceptual realm as the first, in the spirit of Ravel’s fairy tale. Schering, instead, refers to music intended to accompany the masked ball in the first scene of the second act of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The first movement would correspond to the couples Hero and Don Pedro, the lady-in-waiting Ursula, Antonio, and the servants Balthasar and Margaret; the first two are presented in a graceful minuet-like pace, while the third gives herself over to the voluptuousness of swirling turns. The second movement corresponds to the fourth couple: Beatrice and Benedick—characters in constant opposition, who never cease to exchange witty barbs and ironic wordplay.

 [By Biamonti Giovanni – Catalogo cronologico e tematico delle opere di Beethoven comprese quelle inedite e gli abbozzi non utilizzati, Torino, ILTE 1968]