“With Beethoven, a new epoch commenced for pianists and violinists,” wrote Ignaz von Mosel a few years after Beethoven’s death. This statement is based on the striking equality of the two instruments, while in Mozart’s early sonatas these two instruments were presented as piano with violin accompaniment. The first of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas have a similar character; he tried to maintain this Mozartian type of sonata, but in fact gave the violin a much greater role. Beethoven’s first opuses are piano trios and piano sonatas, string trios and a sonata for piano and cello. His three sonatas, Op. 12, are entitled in a similar way as Sonatas for Piano and Violin. Beethoven composed these sonatas between 1797 and 1798, and dedicated this opus under the title Tre Sonate per il Clavicembalo o Forte-Piano con un Violino to his teacher, Antonio Salieri, the Imperial Court Kapellmeister, composer, teacher and conductor, one of the most important and influential figures in Vienna at the time. Beethoven first went to Vienna at the age of 17 to meet Mozart, and for the second time at the age of 22. He studied with Joseph Haydn (because Mozart died in the meantime) and also educated himself, especially in his approach to dramatic form, by consulting Salieri. Like every composer of the time, he longed to excel in opera, but his main strength from the beginning was instrumental music. While still in Bonn, Beethoven worked as a violinist in the local court orchestra. He mastered the instrument and continued to play it even after his move to Vienna. In his violin sonatas Beethoven continued on the path begun by Mozart – the violin ceased to be an accompaniment and became an equal partner to the piano. The form of the sonatas also follows from Mozart – they are in three movements, with an opening Allegro in sonata form and a concluding Rondo.
The second movement in Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major, Op. 12, to be heard tonight, presents a 32-bar theme with four variations and a coda. The dialogue between the piano and violin is a defining feature of Beethoven’s violin sonatas, but the use of distinctive modulations and rhythms seemed to cause consternation among the audience. Even the dedicatee Antonio Salieri reacted in surprise to the innovative style of the music. A critic of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung wrote as early as 1799: “It is undeniable that Herr van Beethoven goes his own way, but what a bizarre, laborious way! Studied, studied, and perpetually studied, and no nature, no song. Indeed, to put it precisely, there is only a mass of learning here, without good method. There is obstinacy for which we feel little interest, a striving for rare modulations, a repugnance against customary associations, a piling on of difficulty upon difficulty so that one loses all patience and enjoyment.” Robert Schumann, on the other hand, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1836 expressed his opinion metaphorically: “...in those 37 years the name Beethoven has unfurled like a shining sunflower – and what has remained of the words of the former reviewer?”
