Beethoven - Sonate No. 23, “Appassionata” 1st Movement - Piano tutorial Story

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Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, Op. 57 (colloquially known as the Appassionata) is among the three famous piano sonatas of his middle period (the others being the Waldstein, Op. 53 and Les Adieux, Op. 81); it was composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, and was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick.

Unlike the early Sonata No. 8, Pathétique, the Appassionata was not named during the composer's lifetime, but was so labelled in 1838 by the publisher of a four-hand arrangement of the work.
One of his greatest and most technically challenging piano sonatas, the Appassionata was considered by Beethoven to be his most tempestuous piano sonata until the twenty-ninth piano sonata. 1803 was the year Beethoven came to grips with the irreversibility of his progressively deteriorating hearing.
An average performance of the entire Appassionata sonata lasts about twenty-five minutes.

1st Movement :
A sonata-allegro form in 12/8 time, the first movement progresses quickly through startling changes in tone and dynamics, and is characterised by an economic use of themes.
The main theme, in octaves, is quiet and ominous. It consists of a down-and-up arpeggio in dotted rhythm that cadences on the tonicized dominant, immediately repeated a semitone higher (in G♭). This use of the Neapolitan chord is an important structural element in the work, also being the basis of the main theme of the finale.
As in Beethoven's Waldstein sonata, the coda is unusually long, containing quasi-improvisational arpeggios which span most of the early 19th-century piano's range. The choice of F minor becomes very clear when one realises that this movement makes frequent use of the deep, dark tone of the lowest F1 on the piano, which was the lowest note available to Beethoven at the time.

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