Chris Teeters

Beethoven is a very well known composer of the last classical and early romantic periods. I myself prefer Mozart over Beethoven, but it this piece was quite interesting. I like it how the in the piece there was rhythms that seemed to speed up or slow down the pulse of the piece, like when there was a group of quarter notes and is immediately followed by a group of eighth notes. I also liked how the triplet eighth notes feel. They helped move the piece forward and gave in it momentum. I didn’t like the exposition.

For some reason the G major scale just didn’t seem to hold my interest. I did however enjoy the development. When the piece modulated it kept my interest and I really enjoyed the frequent changes in the keys. The recapitulation was like the exposition I just didn’t like the G major scales all over the place, but it did have a good ending big ending, that Beethoven usually delivers. I liked the piece over all, but I still prefer

Mozart over Beethoven.

This piece is typical of Beethoven, because of the era he was in. Beethoven was in the end of the classical and the beginning of the romantic periods. Beethoven usually wrote his sonatas in this form which is called sonata form. Sonata form is when the first movement of a musical piece has an exposition with two themes usually. Then followed by a development which is the two themes, but they can be in any key. Finally there is a recapitulation in which recaps the two themes in the original key.

When one looks how Beethoven had the chords progress in piece you would find that there are no real surprises in the chord progression. In this piece you do not find a time when the V chord ever going to anything else other than to I or vi chords. There is also the same thing with the vii, IV, and ii chords. The subdominant block, IV and ii chords, always progressed to a dominate chord, V or vii, or to the I chord.

When it comes to the non-chord tones there were usually passing tones, neighbor tones, appoggiatura, escape tones, and suspension. The passing tones were the most common non-chord tones since they were used when ascending or descending the scale.

Neighbor tones were used occasionally when a non-chord tone came from a chord tone and returned to the same chord tone by a step. Escape tone happened when a non-chord tone was approached by a step and left by a leap. Suspension happened by the tone that was part of the pervious chord but is not a part of the present chord and is resolved down by a step. Appoggiaturas happened when there was a non-chord tone that didn’t fit the others.

In this piece there were two common secondary functions which were the V/IV or the vii/ii. The V of any chord allowed the modulations in the piece to happen smoothly, as did the vii/ii chords. There was also the neapolitan chord in which is a major chord on the flatted second chord, which helps move to the five chord.

I did enjoy this piece, because I enjoy pieces from this time. I may be a Mozart fan but this piece was able to hold my interests. I mainly like the modulations of this piece, even though there was only one minor key in the piece, the piece modulated enough that it didn’t seem like it was the same thing. I also enjoyed picking apart a whole piece of music. This allowed me to fully see what Beethoven may have been thinking when he composed the piece. I believe that the traditional analysis explained everything that happened in the piece. All of the chords were identified and progressed as they should have. I was also able to label when the exposition, development, and recapitulation were at in the piece.

This movement followed the sonata form to the letter. There was an exposition, development, and recapitulation. I also followed the keys in which the sonata form usually in.

Beethoven did a very good job composing this piece. I really enjoyed anglicizing this piece, since musical pieces of the romantic period is more complex than the songs that are written today. It also was a great example of the sonata form and allowed me to see what I can expect to see in other sonatas.