Beethoven: Sonata No.16 in G Major, Op.31 No.1 (Kovacevich, Goode) https://youtu.be/q7LXQVxd6xA via @YouTube

The first Op.31 sonata is by far and away the funniest of all Beethoven’s 32 sonatas, and it’s kind of hard to explain why it isn’t one of the most famous of them all: all the movements feature attractive melodies, and it brims with good humour from the subtle to the ironically crass. You’ve got the first movement, where the hands can’t play together and the development is built almost entirely around an apparently inconsequential motif, the second, which is a joyfully overlong and increasingly absurd parody of (bad) Italian opera, and the third, full of wily chromatic movement and wry counterpoint.

^{HAPPY 250TH ANNIVERSARY}