In this recital, subtitled ‘Beethoven ve Prokofyev’in Duygusal Yolculuğu’ (Beethoven and Prokofiev’s Emotional Journey), pianist Burçin Büke is to play Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 23 in F minor, Opus 57 (the ‘Appassionata’), Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No 3, Opus 28, and Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 32 in C minor, Opus 111.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 23 in F minor, written between 1804 and 1805, is an extremely challenging one for the pianist. The composer himself considered it the most tempestuous one he had written – until he produced his Sonata No 29 in B flat major, the ‘Hammerklavier’, in 1818. The ‘Appassionata’ is often said to reflect the composer’s feelings on having been obliged to accept his loss of hearing, which in 1803 he had come to realise was irreversible. Wikipedia tells us that the first movement ‘makes frequent use of the deep, dark tone of the lowest F on the piano, which was the lowest note available to Beethoven at the time.’
Prokofiev’s ‘energetic and virtuoso’ Piano Sonata No 3 (Opus 28), written in 1917 and based on sketches dating from 1907, is a short, one-movement work. Like his Piano Sonata No 4, it bears the subtitle ‘From the Old Notebooks’. With the possible exception of the second theme (the semplice one in A minor, a brief respite between tempestoso, feroce passages), I personally don’t see much in this piece that can be described as ‘emotional’. It’ll be up to the pianist to prove me wrong.
Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 32 in C minor (Opus 111), written between 1821 and 1822, is his last sonata for the piano. It consists of only two movements, the second of which is a set of five variations. Wikipedia describes the first movement as ‘stormy and impassioned’, and the second movement – marked ‘Arietta: Adagio molto semplice e cantabile’ – as ‘rhythmically visionary and technically demanding’; Thomas Mann, meanwhile, called it ‘farewell to the sonata form’. Beethoven’s contemporaries did not know what to make of this work (though Chopin greatly admired it), and indeed it was only in the second half of the 19th century that it found its way onto the concert platform. The heavy syncopation in the third variation has led some critics, including pianist Mitsuko Uchida, to describe it as ‘boogie-woogie’; Stravinsky, meanwhile, found in it similarities to jazz and ragtime. Alfred Brendel, speaking of the second movement as a whole, said: ‘perhaps nowhere else in piano literature does mystical experience feel so immediately close at hand,’ and it is true that after the dramatic first movement, the second ushers in a much calmer and more serene mood.
Burçin Büke, a native of İzmir, received his first lessons from his pianist father. A child prodigy, he then studied at the Hacettepe University State Conservatoire in Ankara, and subsequently in Hanover, London and Italy. He has given concerts in the United States and a number of European countries, but especially in Germany. In addition, he has given ‘Secret Garden’ concerts in various cities in Turkey. Two of Burçin Büke’s albums have intriguing titles: ‘Mozart for Babies’ and ‘Haydn for Babies’.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
