Beethoven: Sonata No. 28, Op. 101 | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

‘Holy ground for all music lovers’ wrote the great German critic Joachim Kaiser about this sonata, and I fully agree. The opening movement alone is a wonder of inspiration beyond belief – a melody as natural as breathing, lovingly spun into a delicate form akin to a flower covered in morning’s dew, yet reflecting a wealth of complex emotions. The beautiful opening phrase conceals an unexpected fact: Beethoven starts the sonata off-key, on the dominant (E major). This start in medias res contributes to the openness and questioning character of many of the phrases, and later in the movement Beethoven develops this idea, systematically avoiding a resolution into the home key of A major. This turns out to be part of the sonata’s design – Beethoven masterfully builds up a subconscious need for a resolution throughout the movements and manages to delay the appearance of a strong A major until much later in the sonata – the opening of the finale. The first movement does achieve an ethereally light res