Barenboim on Beethoven 3: Form... The Waldstein

“The form that suited [Beethoven] most was the sonata form,” says Daniel Barenboim, because it was based on “creating a unity from opposing ideas and themes.” In this third film from Christopher Nupen’s Barenboim on Beethoven series, Barenboim turns to the monumental “Waldstein” sonata—one of the most musically ingenious and technically demanding of the 32 piano sonatas—to discuss the glorious synthesis of “the most opposing elements… in life as well as in music” that was Beethoven. He also speaks eloquently of the task of the performer, the need to play a piece each time as if it were a fresh discovery, to “imbue the music with its own inherent spirit”—and then shows us how it’s done with a bravura performance of the sonata’s first movement.