Piano Sonata No. 11 (Beethoven)

Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat major, Op. 22, was composed in 1800, and published two years later. Beethoven regarded it as the best of his early sonatas, though some of its companions in the cycle have been at least as popular with the public.

Prominent musicologist Donald Francis Tovey has called this work the crowning achievement and culmination of Beethoven's early "grand" piano sonatas. Subsequent sonatas find Beethoven experimenting more with form and concept.

The sonata has four movements:

A typical performance lasts 25-30 minutes.

The first movement is in typical sonata form. The exposition starts in the tonic key and transitions into the dominant key as the second theme begins. The development plays around with the closing measures of the exposition before making the right hand play arpeggios as the bass line slowly descends chromatically. The theme of the closing octaves from the exposition comes back again in the bass, leading into a chromatic scale resolving in an FMm7 chord (dominant function of the sonata), which sets up the recapitulation. The recapitulation is at first the same as the exposition, but has some changes, with a deviation that sets the rest of the movement to stay in the tonic key.

The second movement is in E flat major and is also in sonata form. Its opening melody is often compared to the later music of Chopin. The exposition starts in the tonic key and ends in the dominant key. The development plays around with the first theme of the exposition, slowly building intensity until both hands play constant 16th notes. The right hand plays a second voice above its 16th notes, and a little later, the left hand plays a bass line consisting of just B flats. The left hand then stops and the right hand flows right into the recapitulation. The recapitulation stays in the tonic key for the rest of the movement.

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