The "'Appassionata" finds Beethoven at the height of his dramatic power.  Each movement
has an ecstatic climax near its end, rather than at the recapitulation.  In the first movement the
climax is breathless and overpowering; in the second it is of great expressive warmth and
yearning; and in the Finale it is utterly possessed with demonic furor.
    The soft, distant opening casts a majestic and foreboding mood which is amplified by the
lonely sonority of the naked arpeggio figure, the treble and bass two octaves apart.  The shining
second theme in A-flat Major is formed from a very similar arpeggio figure with the same
nervous rhythm, thereby creating an unusual sense of unity and continuity.  This becomes most
apparent in the development, where one theme flows smoothly into the other.  How wondrous
that the composer can establish such diverse moods with the same material, and especially that
he can create such noble tranquility with this bumpy rhythm.  The accompaniment helps in this,
by sending out a continuous deep but delicate roar, assuring us, like a familiar waterfall, that all
is well.
    The warmth of the second subject rapidly expires and dissolves into trills and a terrifying
pianissimo descending scale, after which the rest of the exposition is filled with furor and
despair, all in the dark and distant key of A-flat minor.  Even if it were not difficult to return
smoothly to F minor for the customary repeat, the exposition is so full of arresting dramatic
omens that repeating would rob the drama of its continuity and intensity, just as in real life,
certain events are not repeatable and their uniqueness defines them.  This is in fact the first full
scale opening movement in sonata form in which Beethoven does not repeat the exposition.
    A similar consideration applies to the recapitulation.  The emotional tension has been raised
to such a painful level during the development that a literal repetition of the main subject would
sound academic. Just as the listener is transformed by the sonata's events, the theme itself can
hardly remain aloof and untouched, so the recapitulation appears with a new pulsating
accompaniment in the bass, derived from the three fateful repeated notes, reminiscent of the
Fifth Symphony, which appeared in the main subject itself.
    The recapitulation becomes ever more intense and virtuosic, and it really seems as though the
main point has been made, for the sound starts to die away with exhausted reverberations of the
repeated-note motive.  But like a bolt of lightning - and the cliché is irreplaceable here - the coda
resumes with redoubled energy and a quickened pulse as we reach the most stirring point,
delayed until almost the last moment.  What makes it so desperate is not only the increased
tempo and the battle between the pianist and the piano, but the fact that the one friendly and
serene element - the second subject - which had appeared only in major keys, is now used in
minor, its character shockingly altered.  It thus becomes the most agonizing element of all: the
movement's only sunlight has been eclipsed and banished.
    The second movement is a set of variations, whose theme, however, is hardly a melody, but
rather a stately, nobly expressed harmonic pattern.  There are just three variations, each one
doubling the motion of its predecessor, but only in the last does Beethoven abandon the reserved
introspective mood and break into an urgently expressive one.  This outburst is followed by a
repeat of the theme, made to sound like a fading memory by continually shifting from one octave
to another.  The music halts on a very silent but threatening diminished chord, which is then
attacked, repeatedly and mercilessly, and we find ourselves in the last movement.
    As in the first movement of the 'Waldstein' sonata, the accompaniment is the very substance
of the music; its perpetuum mobile pervades all. it is quiet but chilling, like the waves in the
middle of the ocean.  Over this rises a series of desolate, penetrating cries, separated by gasp-like
rests.  The incessant motion only stops once, just before the recapitulation, and even this sudden
halt has an alarming quality to it.
    This Finale is in sonata form, but instead of the usual repetition of the exposition (which was
omitted in the first movement) Beethoven asks, most unconventionally, for the repeat of the
development and recapitulation even writing in Italian: "la seconda parte due volte." This unique
scheme prolongs the movement beyond the listener's expectations, while the accompaniment
continues to trickle on, accumulating more and more energy like water building up behind a dam
that must eventually burst.  And burst it does, breaking into a dance which is both demonic and
majestic; at last the accompanying material, which for an unbearably long and tense period had
been held so tightly reined-in, is allowed to cascade out tumultuously, and sweeps to a frenetic
conclusion.

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