Two enigmas concerning Beethoven
I have two tiny enigmas (or puzzles if you will) that I’ve tried deciphering in the past 3 years or so and couldn’t find a satisfying answer. Perhaps you have any insights regarding these?
1
Beethoven rarely wrote multi-movement pieces in E Major and there are very few works in E minor. In the few works he chose that tonality, he seemed to stick to it all through. For instance, his piano sonata Op. 14, No. 1 (which also has a string quartet version in F) is in E Major. Its second movement is in E minor, and the finale is in E major. Same with his late piano sonata, Op. 109–all movements share the same tonality, E. Among the pieces in E minor, there is the String Quartet Op. 59, No. 2 (“Rasumovsky”), in which all four movements share the same tonality. In the two-movement piano sonata Op. 90 the first movement is in E minor and the second in E major. Did I forget to mention any other multi-movement work in E? Do you have any guess why that is so? Perhaps there are other peculiar things Beethoven does when he chooses to stay in E for an entire piece?
2
We just mentioned the piano sonata in E minor, Op. 90. Have you ever tried to play its second movement and then directly continue to the following sonata in your score, the one in A major? One of the most significant things about the Op. 101 sonata is that it starts off-tonic, on a dominant chord (E major), and there is no authentic cadence in the tonic until late in the first movement. Notice that the very location (on the keyboard) of that opening E major chord is the same as the opening of the previous, Op. 90 sonata (second movement). Could it be that Beethoven started the lyric and nostalgic Op. 101 sonata with the same E major sonority to hint that its dedication to Baroness Dorothea von Ertmann (a brilliant pianist and an “immortal beloved” candidate) is due to her marvelous performance of his Op. 90 sonata (Beethoven is known to have told her that he liked the way she performed his music)?
