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Rating: When the path of your life is destined to lead you to greatness, you are probably already able to understand it at thirteen years old.
This is the age young Beethoven was when he wrote his second composition ever, the 3 WoO 47 Piano Sonatas of 1783, dedicated to the then Prince Elector of Cologne and therefore called "Elector Sonatas" (Kurfürstensonaten).
Even from his debut - the "13 Variations in C minor on a Dressler March Wo0 63" - the very young Beethoven probably amazed not only for the virtuosity demonstrated but also and above all for the bold choice of a minor key, which strongly contrasts with a "light" genre such as variations. Notably, that "C minor" key that would carve out other masterpieces of the Maestro.
The subsequent 3 Piano Sonatas each present three movements in the usual allegro-adagio-allegro structure, although the young B. already introduces some characterizing elements that will be found in more mature works: precisely the minor key of the second sonata (this time in F), the insertion of a theme with variations as a Minuet in the third.
In all 3 sonatas, the debt to past masters is evident, first of all the Mozart of Piano Sonata K 310 (incidentally, also in a minor key...). But with Mozart, we are, clearly, at a very different level of artistic maturity from that already reached by the young Beethoven.
The most interesting of the 3 Sonatas is certainly the second in which the Maestro begins to experiment with solutions that he will develop in the future: adagios repeatedly introducing markedly virtuosic passages, slow movements characterized by a poignant melodic beauty, richness of writing compressed in a single movement.
Unfortunately, there are not many editions of these sonatas available on the market. Apart from the affordable Naxos complete edition by Jeno Jando (which I have not listened to), there remain those by Deutsche Grammophon by Jorg Demus and Emil Gilels. At the very least, you will be amazed to discover how the same music can be represented so differently.
To the "18th-century" reading of Demus, characterized by a certain delicacy and linearity of exposition, so much so that one could almost imagine the sound of a harpsichord, contrasts the masterpiece by Gilels which projects these sonatas into a near future. The material and ideas are the same, but his artistic intelligence transforms them, ennobling them further. There are no sorts of artifices. It's not a matter of virtuosity, quite the opposite. The use of simple elements such as accents, pauses, volume play (magically absent in Demus) allows us to perceive all the details and all the greatness of these small great sonatas. If you have the patience to listen to the sample (the finale of the "Andante" of the II Sonata), you can understand it better than I am able to explain. It's a fragment, but it gives an idea of how much an artist can delve into the details of studying a score. I can't imagine what Gilels could do in front of a Pathetique...
These works are obviously just the starting point of one of the greatest composers that history remembers, but they deserve at least not to be forgotten just because they are easily labeled as immature.
Jorg Demus (piano), Deutsche Grammophon, 1970, ADD
Emil Gilels (piano), Deutsche Grammophon, 1986, DDD
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