Beethoven: Sonatahh Op. 31 No. 3 in E-flat Major | Fidelia

Video recording from a live recital on 11 April 2026. The second piece of the "Shade" Senior Recital series. (last time it's a 4 mins piece. now it's a 4-movement, 22-min piece. hehe ur attention spans are cooked) 🔥🔥 0:00 I. Allegro 7:07 II. Scherzo (aka joke, like my life) 12:23 III. Menuetto (Moderato e grazioso) 17:10 IV. Presto con fuoco🔥🔥🔥🔥 (literally meaning supersonic speed with fire) (also most likely the reason why the sonata is also dubbed “The Hunt”) ~ "Each of his pieces expresses some particular and well supported idea or object, to which, even in the smallest embellishment, he always remains true. … He who should only display his agility of finger therein, would entirely miss the intellectual and aesthetic, and prove that he did not understand these works.” -Carl Czerny (yes the one who made you miserably practice those actually useful Czerny etudes) Compared to the other two more recognizable sonatas of the Op. 31 trilogy, this sonata has a uniquely unifying character; unlike the typical sonatas with extremely contrasting moods (e.g. happy and sad, joyous and tragic, calmness and anger), this sonata contains an overall silly and cheerful mood that follows in almost all four movements. The first movement’s very first few bars unusually feature ritardandi (slowing down), leaving much room for interpretation. András Schiff thinks of it as a question and answer, while Leonard Bernstein interprets it as silly methods of pleading; yet, both think it suggests a conversation, as if the ritardandi mimics the act of waiting for an answer. The movement is filled with exciting hemiolas and Mannheim rockets. The lively second movement demands technical fluency and is loads of fun, with, again, more ritardandi to which Schiff interprets as “a composed memory slip”. This then, is followed by a gracious, cantabile minuet & trio movement, before finally bursting into another fiery fourth and final movement (marked presto con fuoco for a reason); the latter movement evoking sounds similar to the sound of a hunting horn, which led to some audiences dubbing it the “Hunt” Sonata. ~ #classicalmusic #beethoven #sonata #piano #songcovers #performance #musician #classical #classicalpiano