Piano Sonata No. 23 in f minor, “Appassionata,” Op. 57

Composer: BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van
  • Beethoven composed this sonata between 1804–5. It was published in 1807 in Vienna.1
  • Beethoven dedicated to this sonata to his friend Count Franz von Brunsvik (sometimes spelled von Brunswick).2
    • The Brunsviks were an aristocratic Hungarian family. The Count  was a close friend of Beethoven. The Count’s sister Josephine was one of Beethoven’s many romantic interests, and some scholars think that another sister, Therese, was as well. Beethoven dedicated his Piano Sonata no. 24 to Therese.
    • The Brunsviks claimed that Beethoven composed this sonata while staying at their estate in Martonvásár, but in fact he did not;3 he had been working on the sonata since 1804.4
    • Due to the Brunsviks’ claim that Beethoven wrote this sonata at their estate, they received a visit from Franz Liszt in 1846.5 Liszt wanted to play the sonata “at the sacred place of its birth.” Countess Therese von Brunsvik was present for this occasion.6
  • The nickname “Appassionata” was attached to this sonata after Beethoven’s death. It first appeared in a 1838 arrangement of the sonata for piano four-hands, published in Hamburg.7

Sources

  1.  Douglas Johnson et al, “Beethoven, Ludwig van,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed February 11, 2021, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040026.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Jan Caeyers, Beethoven: A Life (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2020), 570.
  4. Johnson et al, “Beethoven, Ludwig van,” Grove Music Online.
  5. Mária Hornyák, “Liszt in Martonvásár (11. Mai 1846): Aus Den Tagebuchaufzeichnungen Von Therese Brunswick,” Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 30, no. 1/4 (1988): 333-41, accessed February 12, 2021, https://www.jstor.org/stable/902236. 
  6. Caeyers, Beethoven: A Life, 570.
  7.  “Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Sonata no. 23 f minor op. 57 (Appassionata),” Henle, accessed February 12, 2021, https://www.henle.de/us/detail/?Title=Piano+Sonata+no.+23+f+minor+op.+57+(Appassionata)_58.

Cut IDs

40057 45099 42004 45184 18267 20349