Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, commonly known as ''Sonata Pathétique'', was written in 1798 when the composer was 27 years old, and was published in 1799. Beethoven dedicated the work to his friend Prince Karl von Lichnowsky. Although commonly thought to be one of the few works to be named by the composer himself, it was actually named ''Grande sonate pathétique'' (to Beethoven's liking) by the publisher, who was impressed by the sonata's tragic sonorities.

Prominent musicologists debate whether or not the ''Pathétique'' may have been inspired by Mozart's piano sonata K. 457, since both compositions are in C minor and have three very similar movements. The second movement, "Adagio cantabile", especially, makes use of a theme remarkably similar to that of the spacious second movement of Mozart's sonata. However, Beethoven's sonata uses a unique motif line throughout, a major difference from Haydn or Mozart’s creation.

Movements

In its entirety, encompassing all three movements, the work takes approximately 19 minutes to perform.

The sonata has three movements: #''Grave'' (Slowly, with solemnity) – Allegro di molto e con brio'' (Quickly, with much vigour) #''Adagio cantabile'' (Slowly, in a singing style) #''Rondo: Allegro'' (Quickly)

Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio

The first movement is in sonata form. It begins with a slow introductory theme, marked ''Grave''. The exposition, marked ''Allegro di molto con brio'', is in 2/2 time (alla breve) in the home key of C minor and features three themes. Theme 1 features an aggressive rocket theme covering two octaves, accompanied with constant tremolo octaves in the left hand. Beethoven then makes use of unorthodox mode-mixture, as he presents the second theme in E-flat minor rather than its customary parallel major. This theme is more lyrical and makes use of grace notes and crossed hands. Theme 3 has modulated to the mediant, E-flat major, and features an Alberti-type figuration for the bass with tremolo. A codetta, with ideas from the opening allegro, closes the section. Some performers of the sonata include the introduction in the exposition repeat though others return to the beginning of the allegro section.

The development section begins in the key of G minor. In this section, Beethoven extends Haydn's compositional practice by returning to the introductory section. After this reappearance of the ''Grave'', the composer generates suspense with an extended dominant preparation.

The recapitulation brings back the themes of the exposition in different keys: themes 1 and 3 are played in the tonic key of C minor, then theme 2 is played in the unexpected key of F minor but then returns to the tonic key. The coda is very dramatic and includes a brief reminder of the ''Grave'' before ending with a swift cadence.

''Grave'' introduction: first four bars

Adagio cantabile

The ''Adagio'' movement opens with a famous ''cantabile'' melody. This theme is played three times, always in A-flat major, separated by two modulating episodes. The first episode is set in F minor (relative to A-flat major), further modulating to E-flat major before returning to the main theme. The second episode begins in A-flat minor and modulates to E major. With the final return of the main theme, the accompaniment becomes richer and takes on the triplet rhythm of the second episode. There is a brief coda.

MIDI rendition, 5:03 minutes, 12 KB

The famous ''Adagio cantabile'': first eight bars

Rondo: Allegro

The sonata closes with a cut time movement in C minor. The main theme closely resembles the second theme of the ''Allegro'' of the first movement: its melodic pattern is identical for its first four notes, and its rhythmic pattern for the first eight. There is also a modified representation of the melody from the second movement, thus connecting all three movements together. The movement's sonata rondo form includes a coda. The three rondo episodes are in E-flat major, A-flat major, and C major. The movement can be thought as related to Beethoven Concerto No. 3 in C minor Op.37. The common use of ''sforzando'' creates a forceful effect.

MIDI rendition, 4:25 minutes, 17 KB

Rondo: Allegro

See also

Beethoven and C minor

References

External links

A lecture by András Schiff on Beethoven's piano sonata op. 13

Score from the Ricordi edition, William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University School of Music.

Score and MIDI files from Mutopia Project in several formats

Brief analysis of the ''Sonata Pathétique'' and free score on the All About Ludwig van Beethoven pages

Public-domain recording of this sonata at Musopen

Piano Sonata 08 Category:1798 compositions

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Coordinates	34°03′″N118°15′″N
name	Freddy Kempf
background	non_vocal_instrumentalist
birth name	Freddy Kempf
born	1977 (age 34)
origin	Croydon, United Kingdom
instrument	Piano
genre	Classical
occupation	Classical pianist }}

Freddy Kempf (born 1977) is a British pianist born in Croydon to a German father and a Japanese mother. He now lives in Berlin.

Early career

He was educated at St Edmund's School, Canterbury and the Royal Academy of Music. He now lives in Berlin. Taking up the piano at the age of four under Ronald Smith, Kempf first caught the attention of British concertgoers four years later when he played Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 12, K. 414, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall. The child virtuoso was shortly invited to Germany to repeat his performance. In 1987, Kempf won the first National Mozart Competition in England and in 1992, was named BBC Young Musician of the Year for his performance of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He won the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 1996 which led to his New York City recital debut at Carnegie Hall.

Career

In a controversial turn of events, Kempf's early adult career ironically benefited from his failure to win the 1998 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where the first prize in the piano section went instead to Denis Matsuev. Apparently, some judges had wanted to award the first prize jointly to Matsuev and Kempf and had successfully negotiated with the Russian Culture Ministry for the additional funding. However, Kempf collected only third prize in the end, which provoked a barrage of indignant protests from the audience and the Russian press, who accused some of the judges of bias (especially towards contestants who also happened to be their former pupils).

In April 1999, Kempf returned to Moscow with a series of television broadcasts and sold-out concerts. Kempf's popularity has been compared with that garnered by American pianist Van Cliburn who, in a different result in 1958, had won the inaugural Competition.

Kempf has continued to perform solo, chamber, and concertante music in Europe, the Americas, East Asia, and Australia, and has recorded recital discs of Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, and Schumann. He was voted Best Young British Classical Performer in the Classical BRIT Awards in 2001.

In 2000 Kempf formed the Kempf Trio, with Pierre Bensaid violin and Alexander Chaushian cello. The trio has been well received on the continent, as well as in their international concerts. Now London based and well received in Europe, they have appeared at the Flanders Festival in Belgium, and in France at the Orpheus & Bacchus Festival. "The ensemble made its United States debut in the chamber music series at La Jolla, California, and in Scottsdale, Phoenix" [Arizona]. *

Quote appears (unattributed) in the liner notes from the Trio's BIS-SACD-1172 (www.bis.se) an all Beethoven disc: - Op. 1 No. 3

and Op. 57 "Archduke" Trios. Also on BIS: Tchaikovsky: Trio Op. 50 and Rachmaninov: Trio 'elegiaque' No. 1 on BIS-CD-1302, ibid.

References

Category:British classical pianists Category:German classical pianists Category:Japanese classical pianists Category:German people of Japanese descent Category:1978 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Category:People educated at St Edmund's School, Canterbury Category:Prize-winners of the Paloma O'Shea Piano Competition Category:Child classical musicians

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Wilhelm Walter Friedrich Kempff (25 November 1895 – 23 May 1991) was a German pianist and composer. Although his repertory included Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms, Kempff was particularly well known for his interpretations of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, both of whose complete sonatas he also recorded. He is considered to have been one of the great pianists of the 20th century.

Early life

Kempff was born in Jüterbog, Brandenburg, in 1895. He grew up in nearby Potsdam where his father was a royal music director and organist at St. Nicolai Church. His grandfather was also an organist and his brother Georg became director of church music at the University of Erlangen. Kempff studied music at first at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik at the age of nine after receiving lessons from his father at a younger age. Whilst there he studied composition with Robert Kahn and piano with Karl Heinrich Barth (with whom Arthur Rubinstein also studied). In 1914 Kempff moved on to study at the Viktoria gymnasium in Potsdam before returning to Berlin to finish his training.

As a pianist

In 1917, Kempff made his first major recital, consisting of predominantly major works, including Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata and Brahms Variations on a theme of Paganini. Kempff toured very widely in Europe and much of the rest of the world. Between 1936 and 1979 he performed ten times in Japan (a small Japanese island was named ''Kenpu-san'' in his honor). Kempff made his first London appearance in 1951 and in New York in 1964. He gave his last public performance in Paris in 1981, and then retired for health reasons (Parkinson's Disease). He died in Positano, Italy at the age of 95, five years after his wife, whom he had married in 1926. They are survived by seven children.

Wilhelm Kempff recorded over a period of some sixty years. His recorded legacy includes works of Schumann, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart, Bach, Liszt, Chopin and particularly, of Beethoven.

He was among the first to record the complete sonatas of Franz Schubert, long before these works became popular. He also recorded two sets of the complete Beethoven sonatas (and one early, almost complete set on shellac 1926-1945), one in mono (1951–1956) and the other in stereo (1964–1965). He recorded the complete Beethoven piano concertos twice as well, both with the Berlin Philharmonic; the first from the early 1950s in mono with Paul van Kempen, and the later in stereo from the early 1960s with Ferdinand Leitner. Kempff also recorded chamber music with Yehudi Menuhin, Pierre Fournier, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Paul Grummer, and Henryk Szeryng, among others.

The pianist Alfred Brendel has written that Kempff "played on impulse... it depended on whether the right breeze, as with an aeolian harp, was blowing. You then would take something home that you never heard elsewhere." (in Brendel's book, ''The Veil of Order''). He regards Kempff as the "most rhythmical" of his colleagues. Brendel helped choose the selections for Phillip's "Great Pianists of the 20th Century" issue of Kempff recordings, and wrote in the notes that he regarded Kempff "achieves things that are beyond him" in his "unsurpassable" recording of Liszt's first Legende, "St. Francis Preaching to the Birds." When pianist Artur Schnabel undertook his pioneering complete recording of the Beethoven sonatas in the 1930s, he told EMI that if he didn't complete the cycle, they should have Kempff complete the remainder - even though the two pianists took noticeably different approaches to the composer (for example, Schnabel preferred extremely fast or slow tempos, while Kempff preferred moderate ones). Later, when Kempff was in Finland, the composer Jean Sibelius asked him to play the slow movement of Beethoven's 29th Sonata, the Hammerklavier; after Kempff finished, Sibelius told him, "You did not play that as a pianist but rather as a human being."

Technique

As a performer he stressed lyricism, charm, and spontaneity in music, particularly effective in intimate pieces or passages. He always strove for a singing, lyrical quality. He avoided extreme tempos and display for its own sake. He left recordings of most of his repertory, including the complete sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert. He performed to an advanced age, often concertizing past his eightieth birthday. He appeared in 1979 with the Berlin Philharmonic, marking an association with them that spanned over sixty years.

As a teacher

In 1924–1929 Wilhelm Kempff took over the direction of the Stuttgart College of Music as a successor of Max Pauer. In 1931 he was co-founder of the Summer courses at Marmorpalais Potsdam. In 1957 Wilhelm Kempff founded “Fondazione Orfeo” (today: Kempff Kulturstiftung) in the south-Italian city Positano and held his first Beethoven interpretation masterclass at Casa Orfeo, which Kempff had built especially for this reason. Until 1982 he continued teaching there once a year. After his death in 1991, Gerhard Oppitz taught the courses from 1992-1994 until John O'Conor continued till today. Oppitz and O’Conor had both been outstanding participants of Kempff's masterclasses and were personally closely connected with Wilhelm Kempff. Other noted pianists to have studied with Kempff include Jörg Demus, Norman Shetler, Mitsuko Uchida, Peter Schmalfuss, Idil Biret and Carmen Piazzini.

Composition

A lesser-known activity of Kempff was composing. He composed for almost every genre and used his own cadenzas for Beethoven's Piano Concertos 1-4. His student Idil Biret has recorded a CD of his piano works. His second symphony premiered in 1929 at the Leipzig Gewandhaus by Wilhelm Furtwängler. He also prepared a number of Bach transcriptions, including the Siciliano from the Flute Sonata in E major, that have been recorded by Kempff and others.

Recordings

Beethoven: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1, 12, 19, and 20 (DG LP 138 935; released 1965; recipient of Grand Prix du Disque)

Autobiography

Kempff, Wilhelm. ''Unter dem Zimbelstern: Jugenderinnerungen eines Pianisten'' ["Under the Cymbal Star: The Development of a Musician" (1951)]. Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1978.

References

External links

Obituary for Wilhelm Kempff, by B. John Zavrel

A discussion of Kempff's work, with a special emphasis on Beethoven, by Christopher Breunig, in Jeunesses Musicales

Wilhelm Kempff discography by Frank Forman

Video recordings of Kempff performances, youtube.com

Wilhelm Kempff playing the 3rd movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata.

Kempff home page, in German

Category:1895 births Category:1991 deaths Category:German classical pianists Category:German composers Category:Litteris et Artibus recipients Category:People from the Province of Brandenburg Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:Members of the Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art

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