Building on his deep love and fascination for Ludwig van Beethoven’s music … Malaysian concert pianist Lee Jae Phang has performed 16 sonatas in public from memory! He marked another milestone on May 24, 2025 with his recital Beethoven The Piano Sonatas Part IV that won him a standing ovation at Yamaha Music Malaysia in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, followed by another recital at the LS Music Yamaha, Kuala Lumpur the next day.
By Foong Pek Yee
foongpekyee@gmail.com
June 2, 2025.
Photos: Courtesy of Lee Jae Phang.
Program for the 91-minute- long recital Beethoven The Piano Sonatas Part lV :
Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 7 (32 mins)
Sonata in G major, Op. 31, No. 1 (26 mins)
intermission
Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 (14 mins)
Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 ‘Pathétique’ (19 mins)
Lee Jae’s profound interpretation of Beethoven’s music and deep connection with the composer led him record almost all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas totaling more than 11 hours of music, and the masterpieces are available on his YouTube channel.
The international award- winning pianist has performed across Europe and Asia, and he won, among others, the Audience Prize and the 1st Beethoven Performance Award of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe & Beethoven in Altaussee Festival 2016 prize in Austria.
Lee Jae began studying seriously for a career in music when he was awarded a full scholarship to study as a specialist pianist at the Wells Cathedral School (WCS) in Somerset, England, UK.
He continued his musical education at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM) in Manchester in September 2012 and five years later graduated with a Master of Music in Performance with Distinction.
In 2017, Lee Jae was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Schools of Music with Distinction.
A concert pianist, teacher and writer…Lee Jae performed Beethoven The Piano Sonatas Part IV on a Yamaha S6 Grand Piano at Yamaha Music Malaysia in Petaling Jaya on May 24, 2025.
A topic of interest … How to practice piano was raised at the end of the recital.
On Beethoven’s music … Lee Jae gave a brief introduction of the sonatas at the start of the recital.
An in-depth analysis of the sonatas by Lee Jae.
Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 7
This sonata was published in 1796 as ‘Grande Sonate’. The title is appropriate because it is indeed the longest of Beethoven’s early piano sonatas.
It was also called ‘Grande Sonate’ because it was published alone, and not as part of a set. Sonatas Nos. 1 to 3 form the Op. 2 set while Sonatas Nos. 5 to 7 form the Op. 10 set.
The Op. 7 sonata was composed during Beethoven’s visit to the Keglevich palace in November 1796 and it is dedicated to his piano student Countess Babette of Keglevich.
The first movement is grand and features extremely contrasting characters and intriguing modulations. It was probably inspired by Haydn’s final piano sonata in the same key, written only 2 years earlier.
The second movement starts off with a somewhat fragmented opening. The silences in the opening bars give the music a sense of space, contemplation, and most importantly, deep expression.
The middle section of this movement features the same pizzicato accompaniment above a chorale-like melody which we heard in the Largo movement of the A major sonata, Op. 2, No. 2.
The third movement fools us with the simplicity of its opening theme.
In the middle “Minore” section, Beethoven paints a stormy and threatening landscape in the tonic minor of Eb minor.
The fourth and final movement is a Rondo movement with a lyrical theme.
Listen out for the unexpected modulation to E major near the end.
This is perhaps another nod to Haydn, his former composition teacher who cast the second movement of this final sonata in the same key.
Sonata in G major, Op. 31, No. 1
Unlike Op. 7, this sonata is part of a set of three sonatas, which were published together in 1803.
The G major sonata itself was composed between 1801 and 1802.
The important thing to note about this sonata is that it is very un-Beethovenian.
This is one of Beethoven’s truly funny creations.
In the first few bars of the opening movement, the listener is made to believe that the pianist cannot play chords neatly together.
Beethoven achieves this by repeatedly instructing the pianist’s RH to anticipate the LH a semiquaver early.
In the second movement, Beethoven parodies Italian lyric opera. Beethoven’s usual concentration and economical writing takes a back seat in this movement: there are ornaments everywhere and even two show-off cadenzas.
In the final movement, also a rondo, Beethoven continues the light mood of the first two movements.
The theme of the movement could be said to be a Gassenhauer tune.
Gassenhauer was the name given to tunes that are so simple that everybody could sing them on the streets, or in the “Gassen”, which is German for lanes or alleys.
My favourite anecdote about this sonata comes from its publication.
Beethoven had sent this sonata to the Swiss publisher Nägeli in Zurich to be printed.
Due to the sonata’s unusual nature, the publisher probably thought that Beethoven had made a mistake and added 4 bars to the start of the coda in the first movement.
Furthermore, it seems that the proofs of the first edition were not sent to Beethoven, and Nägeli published the sonata without giving Beethoven a chance to offer corrections.
When the obligatory copy arrived at Beethoven’s home, he was in the midst of composing.
Ferdinand Ries, a friend and pupil of Beethoven’s, relates that Beethoven asked him to play the sonata through while Beethoven himself remained seated at his desk.
There was an unusual number of errors which already made Beethoven impatient.
When Ries got to those four extra bars, and I quote Ries now,
‘Beethoven jumped up in a rage, came running to me, half pushed me away from the pianoforte, shouting, “where the devil do you find that?”
One can scarcely imagine his amazement and rage when he saw the printed notes.
I received the commission to make a record of all the errors and at once sent the sonatas to Simrock in Bonn, who was to make a reprint and call it “Edition trés correcte” (“Very correct edition”).
Sonata in E minor, Op. 90.
This sonata was written in the summer of 1814 and published in June the following year.
With this sonata, we skip ahead to the very end of Beethoven’s middle compositional period and the start of his late compositional period.
The late period works feature among other things a greater concern with lyricism that is now combined with a newfound intimacy and delicacy.
There is also a greater interest in counterpoint. In the Op. 101 sonata which I performed in the previous recital for example, the whole middle section of the final movement was a fugue.
In this sonata Op. 90, he does not write a fugue, but I would like to invite you to listen out for traces of Bach’s influence here.
Like the G major sonata I performed earlier, there’s a nice story that accompanies this sonata.
Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Prince Moritz von Lichnowsky, who was a friend and benefactor. Beethoven also dedicated the “Eroica” piano variations to him.
Anyway, another gentleman named Anton Schindler, who was a friend and biographer of Beethoven’s, reported in his 1842 book titled “Beethoven in Paris” that the sonata’s two movements were originally to be titled “Kampf zwischen Kopf und Herz” (“A Contest between Head and Heart”) and “Conversation mit der Geliebten” (“Conversation with the Beloved”).
Schindler wrote that the titles refer to Moritz’s romance with a woman he was thinking of marrying.
This lady eventually became his second wife.
Later studies by scholars showed that the story was almost certainly invented by Schindler, at least in part, and that he went so far as to forge an entry in one of the conversation books to validate the anecdote.
Sonata in C minor, Op. 13 ‘Pathétique’
It was composed in 1798, published the year after, and dedicated to Moritz’s older brother: Prince Karl von Lichnowsky.
The publisher was impressed by the sonata’s tragic sonorities that he named it “Grande sonate pathétique”.
The word “pathétique” comes from the French and means “creating sad and strong emotions”.
It also comes from the Greek word “pathetikos”, which means “capable of emotion, impassioned, sensitive”.
This sonata was an important success for Beethoven as it sold well and helped develop his reputation as a composer and not just as an extraordinary pianist.
Musicologists have over the years speculated on whether this sonata may have been inspired by Mozart’s C minor piano sonata, K. 457.
The theme from Beethoven’s second movement is remarkably like one of the themes in Mozart’s second movement.
Bach’s Partita No. 2 may also have inspired Beethoven.
The opening fanfare of the Partita is also marked “Grave” and the “Andante” which follows begins with the same four notes that feature in important points in Beethoven’s sonata.
Congratulations: UTAR council chairman Tan Sri Dr Ting Chew Peh (right) presenting a scroll to a graduate at the UTAR 39th convocation on Aug 17, 2024.
Congratulations: UTAR Education Foundation Board of Trustees member Tan Sri Lee Oi Hian (right) presenting a scroll to a graduate at the UTAR 39th convocation on Aug 17, 2024.
Congratulations: UTAR council member Datuk Lim Si Cheng (left) presenting a scroll to a graduate at the UTAR 39th convocation on Aug 17, 2024.
