It opens with a movement in 2/2 marked presto, which indicates that Lou wants something very fast. The theme is very straightforward, and Lou uses that staggering, off-the-beat technique he featured in the previous sonata. His transitional passage turns to B minor and threads itself ingeniously into A Major for the second subject. He repeats the exposition. (As a pianist I can state without fear of contradiction that this is the most technically demanding sonata that Beethoven has written so far and also his most sophisticated.)
At 4:19, he turns to his development. That half-tone upward move from A minor to B-flat Major, known as a “Neapolitan”, is rare to early Beethoven, but forms a big part of his arsenal in his later years. It’s a short development set in flat keys where the tonic key has sharps, and he lays down a long A7 chord with a fermata to set up the recap.
The transition is in E minor, setting up the second subject in D Major. He ends it with quarter notes, filling the remainder of the bars with rests. Lou is getting into the habit of quick endings; he doesn’t want the pianist lingering.
The slow movement is in D minor, 6/8 time, and is marked largo e mesto, “very, very slow and sad”. This isn’t a conversation with God so much as a cry from the heart. What is striking is the tonal ambiguity. Lou moves between keys with ease using dissonance to disorient the listener. This technique is reminiscent of Bach’s keyboard works, but Bach never played with time the way Beethoven does. The emotional climax at 16:34 uses 64th notes between pulses to create the illusion of speed. It ends with Neapolitan semi-tones in the right hand with low D’s in the left. He closes the coffin gently with silence.
How do you break the bleak mood after something like this? Lou writes a minuet in 3/4 marked simply allegro in D Major. The utter simplicity of the melody is even more heartbreaking than the slow movement. Schubert was to learn a lot from this. The central “trio” section in G Major is a country dance. It ends on a short note.
The finale is a rondo in 4/4 marked simply allegro. It starts with a game where you think the opening note of a grupetto is on the first beat of a bar, but it’s really on the last beat. Lou would turn this idea into an art form in his Opus 106 sonata. You think he is going to end it with a bravura finish, but he surprises you by ending it quietly with a short note.
Wow...that IS “Presto”!