Sonata in G: Tempo di Menuetto (Op. 49 No. 2, 2nd movement)

Background

Beethoven's two sonatas Op. 49 are short, two-movement works, usually dated to the second half of the 1790s, his first years in Vienna. He did not publish them at the time; they came out in Vienna only in 1805, and their modest demands have made them favourites with students ever since. The Sonata in G major, Op. 49 No. 2, opens with an Allegro, ma non troppo and ends with this movement.

Tempo di Menuetto means "at the speed of a minuet": a moderate three beats to the bar. But the movement is not built like a minuet and trio. It is a rondo: its main tune comes round again and again, with contrasting episodes in between.

That tune clearly pleased Beethoven, because he used it again a few years later for the minuet of his Septet, Op. 20, for clarinet, horn, bassoon and strings. The Septet, first performed in 1800, became one of the most popular works of his lifetime, so many listeners knew this melody before the sonata was printed.

How to practise it

The movement is in G major and 3/4, 120 bars long. The main tune (bars 1 to 20) returns at bars 48 and 88. Between its appearances come two episodes, one in D major with running sixteenths (bars 21 to 47) and one in C major (bars 68 to 87), and a short ending follows the last return. Learn the main tune first: once you know it, nearly half the piece is done.

Count "ONE-a two three" for the snap: the sixteenth is short and leads straight into the long note. Make it crisp but friendly, never jerky.

The left hand is a little dance partner:

The thumb plays every upper D; keep it the softest note. Try fingers 5 and 3 for G and B, 4 and 2 for A and C, and 5 for the low D, and practise the octave jump on beat 3 until it needs no looking.

The D major episode passes running scales between the hands, the left hand starting each scale just after the beat, and then gives the left hand broken chords in sixteenths. Practise each scale in groups of four, stopping on the first note of each group. In the C major episode the left hand rocks between two Cs an octave apart under right-hand double notes; keep the octaves light and steady.

A plan:

1. Main tune, hands separately, then together.
2. The C major episode, which is simpler, then the D major one.
3. The ending, then the whole movement.

Tempo ladder: 72, 88, 104, then the full 120. Listen for grace rather than speed: a lilting ONE-two-three, a singing tune and a light, springy left hand.

Moving from short pieces to sonata movements is the theme of the toward the sonatina unit.