It was devastating the first time, the arioso. But the fugue as it grew in confidence and move towards triumph, suggested that surely the worst was over, that the tragedy had been overcome. Therefore, being thrust back into this music, it is now more devastating than even it was before. Think of a person who believes he has conquered of depression, I mean a real depression, only to find himself in the midst of it once again. The weight of that depression would truly be heavier the second time around. The weight of this arioso is as well. In the first arioso, a dominant feature of the music was its unbroken line. Now we have the same uninterrupted accompaniment. But the melody itself proceeds and fits and starts and gasps. Over this music, Beethoven writes the words elmatet, clagged, weary and plaintive This is an unusually poetic directive for Beethoven and it once again, anticipate to the last string quartets. In this case, the Cavatina from opus 130. In the midst of a movement which otherwise glows, there's a passage which like this one from opus 110 starts and stops as if the feeling is too great to let out all at once. Beethoven marks that passage [inaudible] , stifled, and Beethoven felt so strongly about it that he said he could not think of it without being moved to tears. Most of this second arioso, in spite of its very different melodic style and it's different key, it's been transposed down a step to G minor, is in its shape identical to the first one. Identical that is until just before the end. In the first arioso you'll remember we had that final cadence staying in minor ending the arioso with utter desolation. The second time around, we seem to be headed to the same conclusion. When at the last moment something stunning happens. Probably, the most stunning thing to happen in a piece filled with stunning things. This is again, in the how can I possibly describe it category. It's as if Beethoven himself is odd by that first G major chord. We had been primed by the ending of the first arioso to expect a simple cadence in minor. The second arioso being, if anything more hopeless, there was nothing to make us think there might be a way out. To me, those repetitions of that chord growing and growing in volume are a manifestation of Beethoven's own astonishment. If I had to reduce all of Beethoven's late period to one word, and I'm glad that really I don't, that word might be wonder. The sense of wonder in these pieces is what sets them apart, and this is one of the great moments of wonder in the late period. After the first chord brings us to major, nothing happens. This is simply Beethoven reveling, exalting in the place the piece has taken him to.
