Beethoven: Sonata No. 31, Op. 110 | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

We finally reach the conclusion of the journey. The last three sonatas were neither the last piano pieces Beethoven would write – he followed them with the Diabelli Variations, Op. 120 and the 6 Bagatelles, Op. 126 – nor were they his final works in the sonata form – those would be the late string quartets. But after Op. 111 Beethoven’s path did not lead him back to the piano sonata genre. In strong contrast to the Hammerklavier, where the bulging, straining creative muscles are evident in every note, the last three sound like an uninhibited stream of inspiration, captured mid-flow by Beethoven and shaped and moulded by him until they appear to us as near-miraculous acts of effortless creation. Whereas the Hammerklavier feels probing, exploring, challenging, the last three are completely at ease with themselves, reflecting not the struggles of a creative genius trying to unfetter himself from all convention, but the poetic utterances of a composer who has gone so far ahead of us that one cannot but feel awe f