“‘Wrong Keys’: Tonal Reference and Musical Meaning in Beethoven’s Sonata-Form Works” (forthcoming).
In his middle-period sonata-form works, Beethoven treats tonality as an object of meta-musical discourse; that is, he progressively develops the key rather than takes it as a given. This paper cites precedents for this technique, surveys Beethoven’s various uses of it, and explores its para-musical resonances.