The slow movement’s development follows some of the patterns established in the first movement: it is by a long ways the darkest part of the movement, taking that little suggestion of danger from the exposition and running with it. And it is not always the most ambitious or resourceful in terms of how it plays with the movement’s materials. That last statement is perhaps a bit harsh, and it’s certainly not universally true of the development: its opening, for example, is pure magic. Based on the opening of the piece, Beethoven takes the accompanying triads, three note chords, (MUSIC) and turns them into hollowed-out octaves in a lower register, turning the mood instantly ominous. (MUSIC) And the transformation of the theme itself takes its appoggiaturas, (MUSIC) and adds to them diminished chords – the combination changes the character instantly and dramatically. (MUSIC) Making this even more dramatic and uncertain are the mid-phrase silences. The opening of the movement, remember, was an unbroken line; now there are op. 7 style question marks. (MUSIC) This REALLY ups the level of anxiety. It’s as if with this move to a new tonality, and with those sinister chords, Beethoven suddenly has doubts about how to continue the phrase. This transformation of the opening material, is classic Beethoven development, development with a capital D. Nothing that follows, however, really merits that same description. Just as in the first movement, after a bold opening to the development, there are two sequences that do very little beyond cycling through a series of keys. The first, (MUSIC) and the second. (MUSIC) This lack of imagination is not really a shortcoming: the dark atmosphere has been so beautifully and vividly established by those first few bars, Beethoven doesn’t really need to DO anything to sustain it. But compositionally, it’s not exactly dazzling. More dazzling, or at least deeply satisfying, is the end of the development and the return to the opening theme. So, at the point at which I last stopped playing, we had just arrived to the dominant. (MUSIC) We had been modulating pretty constantly, but when that B flat in the bass comes, we stop, hovering between major and minor, but with that dominant pedal point. (MUSIC) Then the bass and middle voice drop out, and the upper, vocal line plays a kind of cadenza, gradually shedding every hint of minor, of darkness, and melts back into the opening. (MUSIC) Maybe this is way Beethoven loved this sonata so much: It has what I would describe as "effortless mastery". I don’t have the impression that this development was especially complicated for him to conceive or construct, and as I said, there are moments within it that come pretty close to being perfunctory, and yet the ultimate effect is just glorious. This is, I feel sure, why he moved on after this sonata, in search of new forms and new languages: his early style had "washed itself". One last piece of evidence that Beethoven did not exactly over-exert himself in writing this movement: there is again no coda whatsoever. The recapitulation takes us back to the tonic, of course, but otherwise unfolds, and ends, exactly as the exposition did. (MUSIC) There’s no lingering, no gilding of the lily here, and none is needed – this ending is perfectly satisfying. But remember, the slow movements of op. 2 no. 3 and op. 7 have codas that open them up into new, wondrous, even cosmic directions. I won’t play them now, because again, those movements are fundamentally different from this one, and therefore the comparison isn't a fair one. But the absence of a slow movement coda in op. 22 is a further example of Beethoven’s let’s-leave-well-enough-alone attitude in this piece. That's obviously a completely reasonable policy, but it is not Beethoven’s standard one, and in fact, "reasonable" is not high on the list of adjectives one would generally use to describe Beethoven. The moderation in evidence here works for the piece, but it makes it an outlier.
