Beethoven: Sonata in E-flat Major, “Les Adieux“ (Oppitz, Lortie)

The Les Adieaux is one of the great works from Beethoven’s middle period, and is notable for several reasons. For a start, it’s Beethoven’s only explicitly programmatic sonata; the three movements are labelled The Farewell, The Absence, and The Return respectively. The first movement is bound by an aching motif; the second is full of painful suspensions and diminished 7th chords, and the last movement is an explosion of joy. There’s also the fact (too little remarked-upon) that the last movement really is