The Sonata #3 for violin and piano by Beethoven always reminds me of music I heard at home. My father was an amateur violinist, and when I began to play the violin, I practiced this music, as well.
The three opus 30 violin sonatas by Beethoven were among several pieces composed in the months before Beethoven wrote his so-called Heiligenstadt Testament, an unsent letter in which he despairs about his increasing deafness and contemplates suicide.
Following the lyrical first sonata in A major, and the dark and stormy second, in C minor, this third and final sonata in this group of three appears much more playful, if verging on the manic at times.
The music begins in a whirlwind of energy, with a first movement full of surprise shifts in dynamic, register and harmony. After a comparatively sedate minuet, the sonata ends with a raucous finale that has distinct echoes of Haydn.
Here are Leonidas Kavakos and Enrico Pace playing this music ar what appears to be the Mozartwum Concerto Hall in Salzburg, Austria.
