Beethoven: Sonata in E flat major, No.3 | Boris Giltburg | Beethoven 32 project

The two previous trilogies in Beethoven’s sonata cycle – the three sonatas, Op. 2 and the three sonatas, Op. 10 – both had the third sonata in the group as their focal point and climax. Whether this is the case in our Op. 31 is less certain. On the one hand, Sonata No. 18 is the only one in the opus to be written in four movements, like most of Beethoven’s Grandes Sonates (Opp. 7, 22, 26 and 28). On the other, the Sonata is so easy-going, so light-spirited, so full of sunshine, that it feels much more like a release after Tempest’s dark tension than a further intensification. I must admit there is very little I can write about the sonata – if ever there was a case where the music speaks fully for itself, this is it. Whatever unusualness it does have can be summed up in two points: a) it begins with a dissonant chord; and b) it has no slow movement, containing instead a Scherzo and a Minuet. Contrasting with these (not very major) points is the wonderful openness of character of all four movements, the