Music taking shape…Internationally acclaimed concert pianist Lee Jae Phang performing The Piano Sonatas Part V. A Yamaha Music Malaysia event, the pianist’s virtuosity continues to entertain and inspire his audience. The event is part of a series on Beethoven’s legendary sonatas. This part kicked off at Yamaha Music Malaysia in Kelana Jaya on Sept 20, 2025, followed by Luxury Piano Lounge at LS Music, Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang, Kuala Lumpur on Sept 21, 2025, Luxury Piano Lounge @ Digital Music Systems, Prima Tanjung, Penang on sept 28, 2025 and Luxury Piano Lounge @ Impian Emas Music Centre, Paradigm Mall Johor Bahru on Oct 5, 2025.
By Foong Pek Yee
foongpekyee@gmail.com
sept 25, 2025
Photos: courtesy of Lee Jae Phang
His deep love and fascination for Beethoven’s music…Lee Jae has recorded almost all of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas and published on his YouTube channel.
He won the 1st Beethoven Performance Award of the BPSE & Beethoven in Altaussee Festival 2016’s prize in Austria.
A story behind the music …Lee Jae gave a brief introduction on the piano sonatas at Yamaha Music Malaysia in Kelana Jaya on Sept 20, 2025.
Piano Sonata in G minor, Op.49, No. 1
Piano Sonata in G major, Op. 49, No.2
Piano Sonata in E – flat major, Op. 31, No. 3
Piano Sonata in F major, Op. 54
Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 57
(‘Appassionata”)
The two piano sonatas Op. 49 date from the final years of the 1790s even though they were published several years later.
Beethoven’s brother, Kaspar, deciding the sonatas were worthy of publication,
presented them to a publishing house without Beethoven’s knowledge.
Both sonatas are small pieces of two movements.
The first sonata is the more sombre of the two. It opens with a first movement in G minor marked Andante. The second movement (a Rondo marked Allegro) begins in the tonic major. However, the light character of the opening becomes more intense with the second theme, which is cast back in G minor.
In the second sonata, both movements are in G major. With the major key comes musical feelings of confidence, aplomb and a touch of bravura.
The second movement of this sonata (marked “Tempo di menuetto”) shares the melodic theme of the Minuet of Beethoven’s Septet for Winds Op. 20.
The Septet was written after the sonata, but it was published first, hence the lower opus number. It became one of Beethoven’s most famous pieces during his lifetime, much to his dismay.
Luckily for us, and for many students wanting to take their first steps into
Beethoven’s piano sonatas, his brother got to the sonatas before they became lost to posterity. The fact that Beethoven used the Minuet theme in his Septet and left the sonata unpublished suggests that he might have wanted to scrap the piano sonata altogether.
I think that the sonatas are wonderful pieces, and we have Kaspar to thank for his quick thinking.
The next sonata that I will perform is the sonata in E-flat major, Op. 31, No. 3.
Composed in 1802, it is the final sonata of this opus number set. Those of you who were present for the recital in Part IV will remember that I performed the first sonata of Op. 31 then.
Unlike the first two sonatas of the set, however, this sonata is cast in 4 movements.
Throughout the sonata, Beethoven maintains a playful jocularity. In fact, all 4
movements are cast in the major mode, with 3 of them in the tonic key.
A distinguishing feature of this sonata is the fact that Beethoven does not write an Adagio slow movement. The slowest movement is the lyrical Minuet third movement.
Another interesting structural feature to note is that instead of replacing the Minuet with a Scherzo (which is something he pioneered in his symphonies and early piano sonatas in the Minuet and Trio movements), Beethoven writes a Scherzo second movement in this sonata and follows it with a Minuet third movement. We are not forced to choose between the two.
In the opening bars of the first movement, Beethoven’s harmonic daring is evident.
He actually begins the sonata with a pre-dominant ii7b chord.
If I did not reveal the tonality of the sonata, we as listeners will not know that we are in E-flat major until the sixth bar!
The final movement of this sonata is likely the source of this sonata’s nickname “The Hunt”. It is filled with allusions to horn calls.
We begin the second half of today’s recital with an interesting and often neglected piano sonata – the piano sonata in F major, Op. 54.
Part of the reason that it seldom features on recital programmes is the fact that it is both preceded and followed by two gigantic piano sonatas. The “Waldstein” and “Appassionata” sonatas very effectively eclipse it with their length and prestige. It definitely does not help that this sonata also does not have a nickname.
Like the sonata in E minor, Op. 90 from Part IV, the Op. 54 sonata is in 2
movements.
The first movement of this sonata is marked “In tempo d’un menuetto”. The opening theme could not be simpler in its construction: in the first 4 bars, we are presented with three increasingly higher statements of the same rhythmic motif in F major.
Just as we grow accustomed to it, the simplicity and elegance of the music is rudely interrupted by a bombastic canon in octaves in both hands.
The movement proceeds with increasingly ornamented statements of the opening theme, finishing with a Coda.
The second movement is a moto perpetuo, also in F major. There are many
adventurous musical twists and turns (modulations to remote keys such as A major at the start of the Development section) and the movement concludes with a coda in a faster tempo. This idea is taken up again, as you will soon hear, in the finale of the next sonata.
The final sonata of today’s recital, the sonata in F minor, Op. 57, nicknamed the “Appassionata”, is one of Beethoven’s most beloved sonatas.
I will keep the introduction short as I am sure that the emotional power of the piece speaks for itself.
After the completion of Op. 54 and 57, Beethoven wrote no further piano sonatas for 4 years, his longest absence from the genre at the time.
The nickname “Appassionata” is apt because it refers to the tempestuous character of this sonata. In fact, this is one of the handful of works by Beethoven that begins and ends in tragedy. Beethoven often follows the pattern of darkness leading into light, but sometimes the darkness triumphs at the end. The other prominent examples of works beginning and ending in a dark mood are the violin sonata in C minor, Op. 30, No. 2 and the “Pathétique” piano sonata, Op. 13.
The “Appassionata” sonata is written in 3 movements.
The second movement of this sonata is a set of variations on a theme in D-flat major.
At the end of the final variation, Beethoven resolves the dominant chord onto a diminished seventh chord. There’s so much uncertainty in that chord that pretty much anything can follow it, and Beethoven does not disappoint us.
We are launched into the final movement, which is a near perpetual motion
movement, similar to the finale of the Op. 54 sonata. This movement ends with a spiral into the abyss of descending arpeggios in F minor.
