“Beethoven’s sonatas, whether show so much variety that one has to ask oneself the fundamental question of what the much vilified word ‘sonata means. Perhaps Beethoven applied the word to entities that are not even sonatas in the strict sense of the term. One has to perceive new law in the highly dramatic musical form. Often in the sonata, feeling eludes form. In Beethoven, that is not the case, for here the two go hand in hand; feeling makes form aware of a hole in the ground and vice versa.”

— Elfriede Jelinek , book The Piano Teacher

P 151
The Piano Teacher (1988)

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Elfriede Jelinek 50

Austrian writer 1946

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Elfriede Jelinek 50

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