The Antechamber of the Beyond: Narratives of Life, Death, and the Afterlife in Beethoven’s Last Three Piano Sonatas

Abstract

Ludwig van Beethoven’s final three piano sonatas, Opp. 109, 110, and 111, have long been discussed in terms of life, death, and the afterlife. To cite two examples involving Op. 111, the nineteenth-century critic A. B. Marx perceived recollections of Beethoven’s own “‘mighty life’” and “‘rays of hope from Elysium,’” while the twentieth-century philosopher and musicologist Theodor Adorno heard “leavetaking” and a curiously retrospective invocation of “Utopia.” These readings are corroborated by diverse hermeneutic studies exploring the existential anxieties and transcendental miracles ostensibly conjured by the sonatas, including contributions by William Kinderman, Lawrence Kramer, Benedict Taylor, and others. However, while numerous commentators have alluded to concepts of life, death, and the afterlife in these works, this ensemble of issues has not to my knowledge been the prime focus of an analysis of the three sonatas qua trilogy. Nor have scholars engaging with these matters explored the role of performance practice in positioning the listener to hear the music in this way.

In this thesis, which takes the form of a written dissertation with accompanying recorded materials, I present a fresh formulation of how ideas of life, death, and the afterlife might apply to Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas. A survey of relevant critical traditions is followed by an analytical study of each sonata in turn. Finally, a wide-ranging reflection on performances of the three sonatas—primarily, my own 2021 album, The Last Piano Sonatas—serves to illustrate the complex and dynamic relationship between these hermeneutic issues and elements of praxis. In sum, I argue that each of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas—considered as a whole performance, rather than a mere array of notes on a page—suggests a unique take on the same basic ur-struggle: an implied protagonist grappling with inevitable mortality, and envisaging or entering the Paradisiacal realm which might follow.