Interpreting Music Semiotics: A Performance Study of Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ Sonata Op.53

In the past two decades, the field of semiotics has increasingly been applied to musicology and piano performance, with particular attention paid to the area of narrative theory. The purpose of this performance study is to study the music semiotics in Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata. While many studies of Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata, for instance, those of Heinrich Schenker, Donald Francis Tovey, Jürgen Uhde, Charles Rosen, and many others concentrate specifically on analytical aspects such as form and harmony, this study will provide an introduction to the essential concepts of music semiotics and narrative theory, the development of a methodology of music semiotics analysis in Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata. Specifically, this study discusses the direct or indirect implications of certain musical motives (ascending thirds vs. descending thirds, C Major key vs C Minor key, repeated notes, pastoral style, continuous dotted rhythm, polyphonic texture, and slow harmonic motion) Beethoven had provided in his Waldstein sonata. It is hoped that this performance study will be of value in future interpretive efforts in the performance of Beethoven’s Waldstein sonata from the perspective of musical narrativity generally.