Pathétique

What would you thinking when you heard this word: pathétique? I wonder if some of you may notice the letter 'é'. Yes, I talked about a composition, and maybe a little about personality. Sonata Pathétique is a composition for piano solo composed by Ludwig van  Beethoven in 1798. Formally, it is known as Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13. He published it in 1799 and dedicated this composition to his friend, Karl von Lichnowsky. Actually, this sonata is consist of three movements. In this article, I prefer to talk about the second movement, because I like the second much more than the first and the third.

I heard this sonata for the first time 8 years ago. I remember, that I went to local book store to buy a classical piano songs in a cassette (cassette was a kind of data storage apparatus, what I bought was a magnetic tape sound recording). I played the cassette, and I heard a very beautiful melody. I was curious. Then I started to ask myself. What was the title? Who composed this? To get some answers, I looked the information in the cassette's cover, and I discovered that the title was Sonata No. 8 in C minor 'Pathétique', Op.13 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Actually, what I heard was the second movement of the sonata.  

A few days later, I asked my piano teacher (I started my piano lesson at 14, and I had it for 12 months only) whether or not she had the score. Luckily, she had the score. When I saw the score for the first time, it seemed difficult to play. But I had my will. Whatever happened, I shall play this. I wanted to utter my feeling, and I felt that the second movement of the composition could express my feelings. I spent my time practicing this sonata for about 2 months, and I successfully performed it in my first concert in an annual concert held by the institution I used to take my piano lesson. 

The sonata has became my favorite, even until now. I like to play it in a particular time when I feel sad, lonely, or pathetic. Here's my favorite melody, which also the main theme of the second movement. You can easily see it in the first eight bars as shown in Figure 1:

Figure 1. The first eight bars of the second movement.

  
By the way, I like the tempo mark, adagio cantabile. Well, adagio means slowly, and cantabile means in a singing style. The theme has been considered as one of the famous cantabile melody. 

I play the sonata on occasion, when I feel so pathetic. It seems that the second movement of this sonata can fully expressed my pathetic feelings. An online dictionary defines pathetic as: causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sadness, and sorrow; miserably or contemptibly inadequate. Yes, I confess that sometimes I feel sad and miserable. 

In the end, I'll conclude that this sonata is my favorite, because it can express my pathetic feelings. You can watch me playing the Adagio cantabile movement here (I played this about 2 years ago, when my acoustic piano's pedal still worked, but now it doesn't work anymore).  Any critic and comment would be highly appreciated. Sorry for my bad word, if it does exist. You can see my refferences here and here.