Talk:Piano Sonata No. 28 (Beethoven)

Unfinished article
I'm not actually familiar with this piece, but it's clear that the "First movement" section needs to be edited down drastically and the reaining movements added in. Scolaire 11:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)


 * hello. i wrote the first movement summary and i wouldnt edit it down at all because it is a thorough bar by bar analysis. i intend to do more on the others, but the floor is open for anyone who wants to add to it...its obvious the rest needs added in. that is not the way i intended to leave it..
 * John (145.229.156.40) 14:29, 14 September 2007


 * I'm not convinced that a bar by bar analysis is appropriate for an encyclopedia. In fact I think it comes under the heading of original research, which is not allowed on Wikipedia. The sections should summarise the analysis of the music by reliable sources, i.e. books or articles by reputable music writers, which should be cited. Scolaire 11:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)


 * well do what you feel.. i dont object to people who want to change it. John

C or K?
I own an urtext edition of this sonata, and the heading clearly states "Für das Hammerklavier," but this article states that the German word for "piano" is "hammerclavier." Which is the correct term?

On another subject: Personally, I am against the No-original-research-policy. As long as the general public sees the opinions to be acceptable, I don't see why this is inappropriate (in the case of musical analyses). However, I do agree that the section on the first movement is a little long for its own good; nonetheless, I must say that it is a highly-well written analysis and am reluctant to truncate it in any way. MusicalConnoisseur  Got Classical? 05:55, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Alas, it makes no difference if you're against the No-original-research-policy – it's policy! I don't know whether there are wikis for musical appreciation or musical critique, but this is an encyclopedia.  It's purpose is to provide informative articles based on reliable sources so that a non-connoisseur can learn about the subject without being swamped by information of a specialist nature.  Also, without citations, the reader has no way of knowing if there is any truth in the article at all, or if it is all just made up.  This edit is a case in point: the fact that "klavier" is mis-spelled throughout casts doubt over the veracity of the whole thing, and in any case an encyclopedia article is no place for reproducing the full text of a series of letters.  I intend to tag that section and delete it in full if it is not edited.  The section on the first movement needs to be drastically shortened, and I would rather it was done by a musical connoisseur than a ham-fisted Wikipedian like myself.  Scolaire (talk) 08:05, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * True, true, but let's not heartlessly delete the entire thing. I agree that a terser summary is desperately needed, so let's start building a well-rounded summary when we can...But deletion is a tad too extreme for me. MusicalConnoisseur   Got Classical? 20:12, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't intent to heartlessly do anything. Somebody with the requisite knowledge and the requisite sources needs to edit the Composition & Publication section so that it is encyclopaedic.  If it is left to me, I don't have the requisite knowledge so I will have to reluctantly delete the entire thing.  Scolaire (talk) 00:47, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Aye, did I sound too offensive? I only meant that phrase in passing...Nonetheless, I will try my best. My apologies, also, to anonymous John, as I must delete much of his painstaking original research. MusicalConnoisseur   Got Classical? 05:15, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow! That was probably even more drastic than what I would have done. But seriously, good edit! The article is much better balanced now.  All it needs is a few words on the fourth movement. Scolaire (talk) 07:54, 19 January 2008 (UTC)


 * John here. i am little grieved at the merciless truncation, but see your point that it's not entirely appropriate for wikipedia.The late piano sonatas of beethoven are my favourite music so in the end am glad that attention has been drawn here and that good summaries of them have a presence —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.130.170.93 (talk • contribs)

Original Manuscript
Is it just me, or is that scan of the original manuscript upside-down? Can it be flipped rightside-up? 24.98.20.220 (talk) 18:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Piano Sonata No. 1 (Beethoven) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 13:16, 30 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Note the date of the foregoing notice. The discussion, now long closed, concerned whether to move the sonata articles to new titles incorporating opus numbers. The conclusion was not to do so. Drhoehl (talk) 23:52, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Questionable statement about root-position A major triads.
I find the following passage questionable, at the least:


 * Though the sonata is marked as being in A major, Beethoven does not write any cadences on the tonic key; the exposition and development do not include a single root position A major chord. The first tonic chord in root position appears towards the end of the recapitulation. It appears once more at the end of the recapitulation, but even then is blunted by the omission of the fifth scale degree.

Finding this a rather astonishing fact, I looked through the score for the first movement, looking for root-position A-major triads, to see if this really could be true. While there may be slight variability in how to define when such a triad is present or not, I found chords in several places which I would accept as being root-position A-major triads: namely, in bars 3, 9, 14, 59, 64, 67, 77, 79, 81-85, 92, 94, 96-97, 101, 102. The one "towards the end of the recapitulation" is probably the one in bar 77, or conceivably the ones in bars 64 or 67.

But anyone who examines the score can see that there are several earlier ones, so the statement in the article is not true - although I grant there are surprisingly few of them. Some of them are brief (a quaver long), but that still doesn't stop them from being root-position A-major triads.

Moreover, I would consider the ones at bars 79, 81, and 92 to be cadences, as well as the one in bar 102, at the very end of the movement. So the statement that there are no cadences in the tonic key is not correct.

Also, the only A-major root-position chord without the 5th degree of the scale I could find was in bar 77, which is not at the end of the recapitulation (that is at the beginning of bar 85). Also, the bluntening effect of that omission is negligible because that omitted E appears very prominently before before and after the chord - that is also a perfect cadence, so the establishment of A major is very strong at that point. (Beethoven often ends movements on a major chord without the 5th degree, and it doesn't seem to blunten the tonality.)

I said earlier there might be some variability in what is considered to be an A-major triad. Some might want to dismiss the very brief unaccented A-major triads such as in bars 3, 59, 64, and 67 - but they are still A-major triads in root position, and cannot reasonably be explained as multiple passing notes, appoggiaturas, or similar. Some might want to dismiss other instances because other notes sound simultaneously with the A-major triads, but I don't think that is reasonable. Cases of this sort appear in bars 9 (top voice has a suspended B# move to D# then C#), and 14 (top voice has a suspended G# go to F#). I don't know if whoever said there were no root-position A-major chords in the movement until towards the end of the recapitulation would want to dismiss these because other notes (mostly resulting from suspensions from previous chords) are sounding together with them; but I would say this does not prevent the essential harmony at those points still being root-position A-major harmony.

I won't alter the article, because someone might accuse me of "original research", and I cannot cite references for this; I'd have no idea where to search for them, and finding them might take hours. It is just basic music theory, not really research. But I might be inclined to think the statement should be removed, as it seems patently untrue to me. If someone else who knows music agrees with me and is more familiar with exactly what Wikipedia allows and what it doesn't, perhaps they may feel confident to alter the text. I will for now be content, though, with merely noting this here, and leaving it up to someone else to decide, if they happen upon my comments.

I appreciate why there is a rule against making statements based solely on original research; but I have (in other articles in the past) seen statements which I would consider flatly incorrect remain simply because anyone who correctly pointed out the error couldn't provide a source, so it was dismissed as original research. M.J.E. (talk) 18:36, 20 July 2020 (UTC)