Which brings the piece’s first paragraph to a fragile close.
Now, two ritardandos in one paragraph of music is a lot for Beethoven: in the early and middle
periods, more often than not, he would go an entire piece
without using the marking even once.
Part of what changed, I think, is Beethoven’s attitude towards notation.
I’m not sure if it’s a question of him thinking more of posterity, or losing faith
that people will instinctively know what he is looking for, but Beethoven’s notation
grows fussier – I’d say more defensive --- as he goes along.
By the end of the middle period, we start to see markings of pianississimo
and fortississimo, neither of which
appear early in his life, and even the phrasing and articulation markings
become more convoluted.
This is, really, the story of musical history more broadly: if you go back to Bach, virtually
nothing is marked in the music.
Most pieces don’t have tempo indications, many don’t have any dynamic markings whatsoever,
and when they do, they are simply “fortes” and “pianos”, and generally the performer
is given no direction at all.
By the time we get to the 20th century, many composers have become relentlessly specific,
in a way that is either useful or exhausting, depending on how artfully it’s done.
There are probably many reasons for this, but the primary one is that over the centuries,
bit by bit, the roles of composer and performer split off.
This meant two things: first of all, that the composers would not
be playing the work themselves.
And second, since the performers were not themselves composers, composers had less and
less faith that the performers would know how to make the right choices
without having them spoon-fed to them.
It’s a very interesting topic, and not one that we have time to properly explore here.
But at any rate, by 1814 and op. 90, Beethoven had begun to spell out things that he would
have left to chance back in the early period.
Having said that, though, I do think there is something in the nature of this specific sonata
that asks for a greater degree of flexibility than most of the rest of Beethoven’s music.
Again, this movement is so much about the juxtaposition of a forthright kind of anger
with tremendous doubt.
And one of the many ways that that doubt is communicated is through those ritardandi – they
lend the music a tremendous fragility.