Beethoven: Sonata in F Minor, “Appassionata“ (Jumppanen, Kovacevich)

The Appassionata is by far and away Beethoven’s darkest sonata: it is an antipode to the luminous Waldstein, which came just 2 years before. It’s probably the greatest sonata Beethoven had written up to this point: it is unabashedly expressionist, distorting harmony, form, and texture all for the sole purpose of achieving a certain kind of emotional effect, creating huge gestural blocks of sound that are shocking in their directness – and which achieve in the end a relentless and jagged sense of tragedy. Th