The Violin Sonata in A major,

Hess Hess or Heß may refer to: * Hess (surname), also ''Heß'' in German, people with the surname Hess * Hess, Oklahoma, a community in the United States * Hess Educational Organization, the largest private provider of English instruction in the Repub ...

46, is a fragmentary and possibly unfinished work for

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

and

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

composed by

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...

sometime between 1790 and 1792. Discovered by musicologist Willy Hess, it may be one of Beethoven's first attempts at composing a work for this combination of instruments. The surviving manuscript comprises three pages containing parts of two separate

movements Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

, both of which are missing several pages including their openings. Violinist Eimar Heeney identifies the two fragmentary movements as being the slow movement and concluding

rondo The rondo is an instrumental musical form introduced in the Classical period. Etymology The English word ''rondo'' comes from the Italian form of the French ''rondeau'', which means "a little round". Despite the common etymological root, rondo ...

. Musicologist

Sieghard Brandenburg Sieghard Brandenburg (21 January 1938 – 18 December 2015) was a German musicologist, who stood out especially as a Beethoven researcher. Life Born in Bad Frankenhausen, Brandenburg studied music (main subject oboe), musicology and mathematics ...

also reconstructs the fragments in this way and adds that he believes the finale was never completed because the score ends abruptly with plenty of space remaining on the page. Both authors agree that the work was balanced in such a way that the violin has a purely accompanying role. Brandenburg characterized the fragments as demonstrating that at this point in his career Beethoven possessed a sound understanding of the techniques used in classical

violin sonata A violin sonata is a musical composition for violin, often accompanied by a keyboard instrument and in earlier periods with a bass instrument doubling the keyboard bass line. The violin sonata developed from a simple baroque form with no fixed form ...

s, but may not have had the skill to use them effectively. Heeney agrees with the assessment regarding the balance between the violin and the piano in this work and adds that the violin part did not contain anything outside the skills of a typical amateur musician of the period. Scholar Richard Kramer commented that the style of the work was heavily influenced by

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

's Violin Sonata in A major, K. 526.

References

Notes Sources * * *

External links

* , performed by

Rachel Barton Pine Rachel Barton Pine (born Rachel Elizabeth Barton, October 11, 1974) is an American violinist. She debuted with the Chicago Symphony at age 10, and was the first American and youngest ever gold medal winner of the International Johann Sebastian B ...

{{Authority control 1790 compositions Violin sonatas by Ludwig van Beethoven Compositions in A major