" ... in the strictest fetter so free and unrestrained" On the (Positive) Hermeneutics in the Contemporary Reception of Beethoven's Late Piano Sonatas

This article deals with the contemporary reception of Beethoven's late piano sonatas. It reconstructs music-analytical approaches and hermeneutic reception concepts of influential authors such as Hoffmann, Rochlitz, and Marx, who offered listeners not only programmatic but also work-centered ways of understanding these often disconcerting compositions, including the need to arbitrate between stylistic and pianistic complexities offset by occasional undisguised songlike emphasis and simple thematic character, and to accept these features as integral parts of this final period. Thus, an attempt was made to launch a positive hermeneutics for the formation of judgement of late Beethoven, especially as it relates to the genre of the piano sonata. These contemporaneous reception strategies are exemplified by the Arietta variations of Op. 111.