ABSTRACT
Beethoven's first published works dating from his Bonn period were the Dressier Variations for piano, issued in 1782, and the three piano sona-- tas WoO 47, which appeared the following year. Despite their considera-- ble biographical interest, these works are of course juvenilia, and the first of his artistically important sonatas are those of op. 2 from more than a decade later, in which Beethoven's thorough assimilation of the Viennese classical sonata style is already evident. It would be a serious error to un-- derestimate Beethoven's piano sonatas from the 1790s. Whereas his first published examples of the concerto, quartet, and symphony are generally inferior to the masterpieces in these genres by Haydn and Mozart, the same cannot be said of the early sonatas. In the piano sonata Beethoven first revealed the full expressive range and power of invention that he was to demonstrate only years later in some other musical forms. Ultimately,
Beethoven's sonatas not only demonstrated his mastery of the Viennese classical style but succeeded in considerable measure in defining the style itself. The influence of these works has been incalculable and has left an imprint not only on subsequent composition and performance traditions but on the development of serious musical criticism and analysis, shaping the very ways in which we think about musical art.
