Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 109: Beethoven’s Last Piano Sonatas, An Edition with Elucidation, Volume 1

105 Pages·2015·4.01 MB·English

by  Heinrich Schenker

Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 109

Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 109
Beethoven’s Last Piano Sonatas
An Edition with Elucidation, Volume 1
By Heinrich Schenker
Translated, Edited, and Annotated by John Rothgeb
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schenker, Heinrich, 1868–1935, author.
[Letzten fünf Sonaten von Beethoven. English]
Beethoven's last piano sonatas : an edition with elucidation / by Heinrich Schenker ; translated, edited, and annotated by
John Rothgeb.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Translation of: Schenker, Heinrich. Die letzen fünf Sonaten von Beethoven: Kritische Ausgabe mit Einführung und
Erläuterung. Wien: Universal Edition, 1913–1921. 4 vols.
ISBN 978–0–19–991420–3 (volume 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–991422–7 (volume 2 : alk. paper) —
ISBN 978–0–19–991424–1 (volume 3 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–991426–5 (volume 4 : alk. paper) 1. Beethoven,
Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 30, op. 109, piano, E major. 2. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 31,
op. 110, piano, Aflat major. 3. Beethoven, Ludwig van,
1770–1827. Sonatas, no. 32, op. 111, piano, C minor. 4. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770–1827. Sonatas,
no. 28, op. 101, piano, A major. I. Rothgeb, John, editor, translator. II. Title.
ML410.B42S27713 2015
786.2′183092—dc23
2015001173
Music engraving by Woytek Rynczak, W. R. Music Service
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
Editor’s Preface vii
About the Companion Website xi
Foreword 1
Preliminary Remarks 3
Commentary 
First Movement 13
Second Movement 43
Third Movement 55
Editions consulted, and Facsimiles 81
Bibliography of Cited Works by Heinrich Schenker 83
Bibliography of Cited Works by Other Authors 85
Index  87
v

Editor’s Preface
With the four books in this set, the translation into English of Heinrich
Schenker’s major works is complete. Publication of the original German of the works
translated here occurred in the following order: 109 (1913),1 110 (1914), 111 (1915), 101
(1921). A second German edition, abridged, edited, and annotated by Oswald Jonas,
was published in Vienna by Universal Edition in 1970–1971.2 Jonas provided in his
annotations many insights and supplements regarding both source appraisal and the
music itself that are cited or quoted in the present edition as space permits.
These commentary editions make available to English readers for the first
time some of Schenker’s best musical thinking. Among the features that may
have escaped the notice of many Anglophone musicians thus far, for example, is
Schenker’s fine sensitivity to the delicacies of Klaviersatz (piano writing or texture)
in the first movement of Op. 109, which fuels his withering critique of an earlier
editor’s “improvement” of Beethoven’s text. Another is Schenker’s revelation of the
spectacular link between the modulation and the second theme in the first move-
ment of Op. 111.
The unprecedented compression of sonata form in the first movement of Op. 101
has often been noted, but from Schenker’s commentary we learn with precision about
1 The Op. 109 edition was reprinted in 1922, with numerous corrections to the score. Schenker had marked a

copy of the first impression with hundreds of minor revisions to the text as well, but these were not incorpo-
rated into the reprint.
2 In addition to a large number of references to Schenker’s earlier publications, Jonas deleted most of Schenker’s
critiques of editions now long out of use as well as the Literature sections and the irrelevant political out-
bursts. The present edition is unabridged.
vii
viii Editor’s Preface
Beethoven’s radically new way of integrating the form’s constituent parts—especially
the second theme—into this optimally compact structure. Beethoven’s composing
of a far more expansive sonata-form piece in the last movement of Op. 101 shows yet
another innovation, again with respect to the second theme.
Schenker’s detailed suggestions as to tempo, dynamics, rubato, fingering, and
pedaling—in short, much that is requisite for a finely nuanced performance—round
out the discussion of each formal section. These features need no further editorial
introduction.
A few words may, however, be in order regarding the relation of these editions to
the rest of Schenker’s output. The books were preceded by Harmonielehre (1906) and
Kontrapunkt I (1910), both of them components of the grand plan Neue musikalische
Theorien und Phantasien3 devoted to an investigation of the tonal system and its lan-
guage as they could be observed in and inferred from the masterworks. But these trea-
tises had been intermixed with still other publications whose purpose was exclusively
the elucidation of works of art. These two thrusts—theory and application—were cul-
tivated simultaneously during the first and second decades of the twentieth century.4
Harmonielehre had been concerned most importantly and originally with Schenker’s
wholly new vision of the Stufe, or scale degree, which at the time he regarded as “far loft-
ier and far more abstract than the conventional one. . . . The scale-step [= scale degree] is
a higher and more abstract unit” that “may even comprise several harmonies. . . .”5 This
insight alone led Schenker to a far more sophisticated understanding of some complex
music than earlier harmonic theories could have done, as witnessed by his interpreta-
tions of passages from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde (Harmony, p. 149/193f., 151/195f.)
and especially Var. XV of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (Harmony, p. 160f./206).6
Yet it would still be more than a decade before Schenker would discern the primary
instrument of the scale degree’s concrete realization.
By 1913, the date of 109, Schenker had not progressed very far beyond the new
(but still incomplete) perception of the scale degree. His representation of harmony
in the sonata still relied on the Roman numeral—which was perfectly correct and
appropriate as far as it went—, but for the most part he still read more scale degrees
than he needed to.
3 Harmonielehre, the first volume of the series, already bore this as its superior title. Authorship there was

attributed only to a Künstler (artist).
4 Indeed, works devoted to elucidation took the lead. The scrupulously edited and annotated sonatas (and one
rondo) from the Kenner und Liebhaber collection by C. P. E. Bach (1902) and Ein Beitrag zur Ornamentik
(1904) both belong to this category.
5 Harmony, §78. The formulation “may comprise several harmonies” suggests that Schenker’s vision of the
scale degree is not yet completely clear (see below).
6 Page-number citations are given first for English translations and then for German originals, the two sepa-
rated by a virgule, ‘/’.
Editor’s Preface ix
A small and simple example will illustrate this. The Coda in the first movement
of Op. 109 begins in bar 65 (upbeat) with the triad of IV; Schenker read this and the
next three quarters as “IV—I—V—I.” Later, as he was revising the text for the 1922
reprint (see note 1), he crossed out the second Roman numeral. He did so in appre-
ciation of the meaning of the tones G and B of bar 66 as passing tones.
♯
The year 1922 also saw the appearance, hard on the heels of the publication of
101, of the second book of Kontrapunkt, with its richly suggestive “Bridges to Free
Composition.”7 As early as Harmonielehre Schenker had formulated this analogy
between free composition and strict counterpoint: “That which, in free composi-
tion, would correspond to the tones consonant with the cantus firmus is the scale
degree; the entities that would correspond to the passing dissonance, however, are
the intermediate chords being unfolded in free voice leading.”8 It may well have
been as Schenker was working years later on Kontrapunkt II and was contemplat-
ing the phenomena of the “Bridges” (the combined species) that the insight came
to him: the “free” voice leading of free composition was not, after all, so completely
free; it constituted instead an elaboration, by diminution, of formations regulated
by the principles set forth in the “Bridges”; moreover, in free composition, the single
dissonant passing tone of strict counterpoint was generalized to stepwise progres-
sions through the triadic spaces of scale degrees. Any such progression he would
henceforth designate by the term Zug (linear progression),9 and this policy would
take effect already in another work in progress, namely 101.
This concept, which becomes central to musical elucidation in the issues of Der
Tonwille and all subsequent works, makes its first appearance in the discussion of the
scherzo movement in 101. Schenker’s first observation about the tonal structure of
the movement is that “the voice leading in bars 1–4 is based on a fourth-progression
[Quartzug] F—C of the bass.” From that point on through the remainder of 101,
Schenker’s concentration on these progressions decisively influenced the text.
The precision of Schenker’s understanding of the tonal system and the nature of com-
position had thus made a great leap forward between 1915 and 1921. The analytic yield in
the period immediately following this breakthrough, however, was mixed. Many years
later, looking back on his oeuvre, Schenker found the following concession obligatory:
Since the task of revealing the world of the background in music fell to me, I was
not spared the difficulty of finding symbols for it. This required many years.
7 Counterpoint II, p. 175ff./169ff.

8 Harmony, p. 159/204, although rendered more freely there.
9 In 101 and his analysis of the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (Tonwille I), Schenker occasion-
ally used the term Knotenpunkt as interchangeable with Zug. As early as Counterpoint II, p. 58/59, however,
he defined the former term in an entirely different (and more useful) way.