When Beethoven was in his early twenties, he had already spent a decade working as a court musician. Ambitious to establish himself not only as a piano virtuoso but also as a serious composer, he moved to Vienna in November 1792 to study composition with Haydn. Their lessons lasted only a year because of Haydn’s departure for London, a circumstance that deeply disappointed Beethoven. Even so, he quickly achieved what he desired: he built a formidable reputation both as a pianist and as a composer, and was soon welcomed into Vienna’s best aristocratic circles. 

During his first decade in Vienna, Beethoven composed primarily for the pianoforte, the instrument he considered the most effective medium for expressing his musical ideas. Nearly two-thirds of his piano sonatas date from this period, including Sonata Pathétique, Op. 13. Although Mozart and Haydn had already cultivated the piano sonata extensively, Beethoven approached the genre with confidence that he could surpass them; therefore, his piano sonatas are much larger in scale, explore a wider emotional spectrum, and require more advanced technical mastery… [276 more words]