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Listening to this sonata and in the 2nd and 4th movements are a couple melodies that I swear I've heard in Mozart somewhere. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Hi Joel,

Which sonata no. 1 do you mean? The Op. 49 pair was composed before all the others and published later without Beethoven's permission . . .

Maybe you can elaborate on which melodies? Scriabin is right - one does hear Mendelssohn in Wagner! - so I am quite open to a similar idea with the Beethoven sonata no. 1 (whichever no. 1 sonata it is! - it is a bit confusing that these works are usually numbered out of chronological sequence).


M.

Michael: Everybody knows which Beethoven Sonata is #1!
(Just look in any Vol. 1 of the sonatas, see which one is #1, and you have your answer.)
You're making it more complicated than it is.

Joel: I imagine that for the 4th mvt you mean the melody at 15:53 on here. But there are a couple of other places too.
For the 2nd mvt, I think there could be a number of places.

What Mark said, Michael.

Someone recently posted a video in which a lecture was given on the role of improvisation in Mozart. In it, the lecturer played a piece and pointed out that it was quite reminiscent of a particular melody in the (Pathetique?) sonata. I can't remember which piece it was, but as soon as he said it, it was totally obvious.

Whether composers did it to pay deliberate homage or it's more incidental to simply having had the prior masters' works drilled in their minds, it's hard to tell.

As for this particular instance, I don't know, but certainly Beethoven engaged in a not-inconsequential amount of overt musical "quoting" of even himself.

I can't think of any exact matches with Mozart, maybe someone else here can do this?

That is the Beethoven slow movement that got me in trouble at school! Play it faster or get an "F" were the options presented to me (I chose a third option: withdrawal!).

It doesn't feel particularly Mozartean to me . . .


M.

If we are talking about Beethoven's 1st Sonata Opus 2/1 ... which is dedicated to Papa Joseph Haydn.

At that time Beethoven was still trapped in the antiquated styles of his mentors Haydn and Mozart.

Only in Opus 13 (Pathetique) does Beethoven pin his true colours to the mast.









which are a

You might be referring to the Adagio of the pathetique - there's a similar A flat section in the slow movement of Mozart's sonata in the very same key.

Many of these hommages MUST have been thought out well in advance...Brahms 1st sonata opens with allusions not only to Hammerklavier but to Waldstein as well. Ravel's Valses nobles start with exactly the same rhythm as the Schubert Valses nobles, just that the bar placement has been changed. Shostakovich's 2nd fugue subject (the one in a minor) has the same rhythm as Bach's 2nd fugue subject (in c minor) but with the bar-line displaced, again. Heck, the first prelude in the Shosta set starts with the very same notes as Bach's C major prelude! Brahms Schumann variations include a quotation from a song by Clara Schumann...etc etc etc. One could go on endlessly.

The Beethoven slow movements seem to have a broader, more monumental quality than those in Haydn and Mozart - even in the earlier Beethoven sonatas. For some reason this professor had a tremendous resistance to the expression of this in sound. Probably I would have handled the situation of being threatened with an "F" grade on the basis of something other than my piano skills more diplomatically if I had been older. I was hardly a teenager at the time . . . it seemed easiest and least confrontational to just walk straight to the administration offices and say I wanted out with full refund to my parents - and the administrators seemed to think this was the best solution for everyone involved as well!


M.

The melody Mark pointed out at 5:53 does sound and shape similar to Mozart K545 mvt.2......at least to my untrained ear.

Mark, yes! That's one of the spots at least. And I just figured that one out. Sounds very much like K281 at 2:22 in this recording: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnJvgUY0Vts#t=2m22s

By the way, if you've ever wondered how some videos take you to a specific time, it's simple. Just add this to the end of your url: #t=(minutes number)m(seconds number)s

For example, 1:20 would be: #t=1m20s

3:23:13 would be #t=3h23m13s

Just thought I'd share...