A simple sonatina in the Haydn mode. In his 1949 article Harmonic Aspects of Classic Form Leonard Ratner lays out the now widely accepted notion that sonata form should be as well understood in its harmonic binary-ness as it is in its bithematicism. That is to say, the notion that a Sonata has two conflicting themes or two conflicting theme-groups that reconcile in the work’s recapitulation needs to be balanced by an understanding of a larger scale harmonic progression from the tonic to the dominant and back again or its overall debt to binary form. In a typical binary form, say an Allemande from a Bach French Suite, the harmonic motion is from a tonic to a dominant with a foray into a relative minor in the first half of the B section before returning to the initial tonality. Thematically, it tends to spin out one them. In a Sonata, at its most basic level, we have the same harmonic journey, but add to it (at least) two primary themes, each in its own key. When these themes recur at the end of the work, the second has been altered to match the key of the first.
The first movement of this early sonata exists in a land somewhat in between. It maps the harmonic journey of the sonata and the second theme recurs in the tonic at the end after a developmental sequence, but the first theme only returns after the repeat, and in the dominant much like a standard work in binary form. This seems to me reminiscent of early Haydn piano sonatas, but I haven’t explored those very much. If we assume that Beethoven knew what he was doing, and I’m not certain that he did – the work seems to bear the sense of being composed left to right – we are probably seeing a transitional mid-century sonata variant akin to some of the types outlined by Rosen in his study Sonata Forms.
Moving on, the Andante demonstrates Beethoven’s lack of skill with its awkward phrase endings and the rondo is a bit more assured with its jolly head motive, but not particularly good or memorable.
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