We did not have this complete sonata on the site yet, so here is my version of it - recorded this evening. It's such a cute sonata and fun to play. Somehow, clouds are lifted when I play it and I feel happier. Ah, music - who needs anything else!

Anyway, I know this is not perfect, but hopefully it is acceptable for the site...? Also, it is interesting that in such an upbeat sonata like this one, Beethoven chose to end all three movements in a quiet dynamic, sort of like each movement just floats off delicately into space. Very neato, I think!

Beethoven - Sonata Op. 79 in G major, I: Presto alla tedesca

Beethoven - Sonata Op. 79 in G major, II: Andante

Beethoven - Sonata Op. 79 in G major, III: Vivace

Very good interpretation Monica. Standards have probably changed (to the better) while I've been gone...as if this is not good enough to be up, I will have a very hard time coming up with anything . Summarized, I liked your playing very much and it seems like you have studied the score well and really tried to understand what Beethoven wanted to achieve with this Sonata.

The very positive and spiritual mode in the first movement is a bit unusual for being Beethoven and he did chose the most major key of them all, G major.

Good enough to produce a tweet around too so I spread the word Monica . Will be seen in both my FB profile on in Twitter.

Ah, it is not up on the site yet. Then I wait until it is.

Lol yes, this is surely "acceptable for the site".
Very good job. Some of the running 16ths (1st mvt) and tremolos (3rd mvt) sound a little stiff but the middle movement is just perfect.
Nice dynamics throughout.
Must be great to have an instrument that never seems to go out of tune...

Thank you, both. I did try to find all dynamic marks and also all staccato marks -something that I often miss.
My piano was tuned about month ago.
I cannot put this up on the site because I can't insert a new sonata within the 'pretty table'.

Oh yeah, I'll do that tonight. This is starting to become a problem as I convert more pages this way, and don't want anyone touching them with the WISIWYG editor which makes a godless mess of the HTML. I must think hard about that....

Yes, very nice.

Given comments you have made about having little time to look at new stuff because, among other things, of needing to prepare for your competition, may we take it that some of the pieces you've recorded recently are in your competition repertoire?

Allow me a little constructive criticism on the first movement. No more than nitpicks really, concerning timing.

If you look at the first repeated section, you are inserting a spurious gap, equivalent to a quarter-note rest, between the 1st time bar and the bar before it. You are probably tempted into this by there also being a quarter-note rest at the beginning of the 2nd time bar, but I feel the octaves, C A, should be considered as upbeats to the G following, so there should be no gap between the A and G there. You make a similar undesirable gap between the 2nd time bars and the next section, between the F# and E octaves.

Also there is an awkwardness 5 bars before the aforementioned 1st time bar which produces a rhythmic discontinuity. I think it may be the result of making too much of the trill. There should be no dwelling on the trill, nor any gap between it and the following note, since this trill note is really an upbeat to the next bar. You play this much better the 2nd time than the 1st, but even the 2nd time there seems to be a slight hiatus before moving to the next bar (there is a slur marked from the E trill to the following D which you are breaking). You also seem to be starting the trill before you play the left hand chord. My edition (Schirmer, Bülow-Lebert 1894/1923) has an annotation to the effect that this trill should "be conceived simply as an inverted mordent with after-beat (quintuplet), and begun on the principal note", with which I agree whole-heartedly, as there really isn't enough time to play much more than 5 notes here, unless you want to improvise a cadenza . If you think of the overall beat pattern as being in one rather than three, you want to pretty well keep that rhythmic continuity going (despite the editorial "ten" marking attached to the A half-note).

In the development section I feel you are using a little too much pedal in the passage starting in the 8th bar (where there are 3 bars the same and then 4 bars the same), and similarly elsewhere. Although my edition does have pedal marked, spanning the 1st 3 bars, again the next 4 bars, and then the next single bar, I feel this is excessive since (as Eddy will confirm ) it makes the staccatos impossible, which are marked in the left hand on the 2nd and 3rd beats. Interestingly, in this 16-bar passage, these explicit pedal markings are not shown for the 1st 8 bars, only for the next 8 bars, and the same is true where the passage comes again in a different key a bit later on.


Now to the second movement. Gorgeous, I love slow movements, but I do feel you're overdoing the slowness. It's only Andante, not Adagio or Largo. It can flow a lot more without risking the 16ths becoming rushed. My edition's metronome marking is dotted quarter = 56, in other words eighth = 168, but as you play it, it sounds more like 120.


In the third movement there is a devil of a passage where the right hand plays groups of one 8th plus two 16ths against triplets in the left hand. This is, IMO, quite a bit more difficult than if the right hand simply had to play continuous 16ths, but you seem to have conquered this well. At least I think you have. Your dynamic balance here favours the right hand so much over the left that it's difficult to hear whether the triplets are just right. Be confident, don't try to cover them up lest they not be!

I'm amused by the annotation in my edition, which comments: "All efforts towards an exact mathematical proportioning of the accompaniment triplets to the duple rhythm of the theme will be in vain. Only assiduous practice with each hand will lead to the requisite independence." It then refers to another page (last page of 1st movement of Op 54) where a method for practice is discussed. There it says, somewhat philosophically: "As any truth can attain to permanent recognition only after a painful struggle with dissonant and opposing errors, in like manner, for acquiring certain mechanical accomplishments, the expedient is to be recommended ... to exhaust all possible ways of 'how not to do it'. A player, unable so far to control different simultaneous rhythms as to play 4 notes in the right hand to 3 in the left independently of each other, should practise in alternation the following examples until he involuntarily hits the sole remaining 'right way'." The examples all show the RH playing straight 16ths, while the LH plays groups of either (a) one 8th plus two 16ths, or (b) two 16ths plus one 8th, or (c) a syncopated rhythm of one 16th, one 8th, one 16th.

I'm not absolutely convinced the mathematical approach is necessarily in vain. I reckon it would work well in a very slow tempo. For instance, I've been trying to tackle that passage in the middle section of Esplá's Levante No 9, where the RH plays triplet 4ths initially against straight 4ths in the LH (easy enough) but then against 8ths in the LH (much harder), and because the tempo is slow it just has to be right (and on your recording you make it sound natural and effortless - I'm jealous!). The way I practise it is to treat the faster of the two as the primary rhythm and then fit the slower ones in somehow, so where it's 3 against 2, this is easy: I feel the 3, and stick the 2nd straight 4th in halfway through the 2nd triplet 4th. But I can't play the other passage by feeling the triplets, I have to feel the 8ths, and having worked out that the 2nd triplet 4th has to come just after the 2nd 8th, and the 3rd triplet 4th just before the 4th 8th, I can just about pull it off.

At the slow speed I reckon the mathematical approach wins. At a faster speed like in these Beethoven sonatas, I guess you could play it very slowly mathematically at first and then speed it up, but of course at high speed the math stops working, and I guess the better approach is to train the LH to run on autopilot while you consciously focus on playing the main theme with your RH. Is that how you did it?

Nope! Good guess, but none of my recent submissions are in my competition program.

Regarding your nitpicks: I did not hear those gaps in the first movement until you pointed them out. I don't think they are that bad, and for sure do not warrant a total re-record. I have to go back to work starting tomorrow, so there goes most of my time for practicing/recording. I suppose I could close the gaps with my editing program. Will have to think about that.....



Actually, this is one time when I like my trills, and that one that came out slightly longer (the first trill) is one I particularly like most.



I don't show staccatos in my score.


I don't agree here. I think I am right on with my Andante and really I could never play this movement any faster. This is just the way I feel it.



I'm not trying to cover up anything. I just play the notes!



Yes, that is exactly how I did it - At first, I practiced it slowly and saying the words, "trip-o-let", and then after the left hand gets going pretty well, I then tune it out and listen to my right hand. After some time, everything just starts clicking along okay and then I know I'm good to go.

Well, Rainer, even if I don't agree with some of your comments, I'm grateful you took the time to point out all these areas in the music that you felt needed to be addressed. It makes me go back to music with a looking glass, which is a good thing. I enjoy doing that!!

I agree. The tempo and execution felt just right to me.

Ok, so you manually hack HTML then?

Hack
That's insulting, I produce beautiful elegant HTML code. It's the Exponent editor that hacks it up until its fubar !

Hi Monica,

I had the pleasure of listening to your Op. 79 Beethoven Sonata set. Wonderful playing. The first four notes in first movement sound really punchy and I was reminded of a starting gun at a sports race I liked your second repeat in the beginning. I think it is like you said in another post, you do something different with the same music the second time round, which is makes the same material not so redundant At the end, with the minor 2nd disonant double notes I thought I heard a little bit of Granados. But Beethoven was born before him so I doubt it

As for your second movement, I agree with yours and Chris's remarks, I thought the tempo was right on the money Nice phrasing and use of pedal to blend the double time sections with the first section which seems to use the biggest beats of the measure for pace. I also sensed that you play the first beat strongly and the following beats not as important. I think this is a right for the style and for many pieces I have trouble playing them this way, instead, emphasizing each beat

As for the final movement, nice trills and octaves, mixed with the uptempo. Also the dynamics between the broken chords playing soft and the octave sections playing loud makes for more of a story instead of the dynamic level being fixed at one setting. At one point I thought I was listening to one Granados spanish dances, those forte octaves.. At 1:45 I liked how you kept the octave interspersed note short, against what seemed like a running bass.

I enjoyed hearing your performance of this sonata, you play it well

Riley

Thank you again, Riley!

I like how you hear Granados in these pieces! That's so cute!!

Hello Monica, Happy New Year!

Along with Op. 31/3, this sonata is definitely one of the jovial and fun ones to play. Beautifully played, not much to pick on here. Your dynamics, phrasing, rhythm are very good. The tempo markings on the 1st movement is Presto Alla Tedesca, and the 3rd movement is Vivace. My only nitpick would be to increase the tempo on the 1st and 3rd movements a tad - it would make the rhthym more sprightly and brisk and your dynamics would stand out more. The second movement is very moving, no pun intended. Very musical to good taste... To complete a Beethoven Sonata with ALL the movements is rarely done! All too often, I've done a movement here or there, but it's tough to have a complete Sonata under one's belt (or dress:). Bravo!
It's been a difficult and busy year for our family, but I've missed my family here on PS!

Hi George! Happy New Year to you too!! Although, I am aware of your family hardship recently, so I know the holidays must have been difficult. I was thinking about you recently because of it. I'm so glad to see you here now!

Thank you for the criticism on my Beethoven. Maybe I could pick up the tempo a little in the outer movements - but I would need some caffeine probably. Regarding recording a whole sonata - it's strange, but I don't like to even listen to whole sonatas - especially when they're submitted here on the site. I just like single pieces, or maybe two, three, or four short-ish pieces from a set. I recorded this complete sonata because it's pretty short and each of the three movements appeals to me.