When the repeat of the exposition comes to an end, and we begin the development, we do so with yet another largo arpeggio, which isn’t any longer a surprise: we’ve had two of them in the exposition, after all, so counting the repeat, it’s appeared four times by now. (MUSIC) The continuation, however, is a huge surprise – this movement, it seems, has an infinite capacity to surprise. (MUSIC) In the exposition, each time that largo arpeggio came, it was followed immediately by the propulsive allegro. (MUSIC) Now, instead, we get not just one arpeggio (MUSIC), but a second (MUSIC), and a third (MUSIC). Really, this is hugely destabilizing. After the first arpeggio, the exposition has conditioned us to expect this (MUSIC). We already knew that the arpeggio was not "merely" an introduction: that notion was shattered when it recurred six bars into the piece. But it had always been...contained. It was always just the one arpeggio, and then we moved on to other business, the orderly, if highly agitated music of the allegro. Now, we get three arpeggios, one immediately following the other, each one more harmonically remote than the last. (MUSIC) The arpeggio’s presence, peppered throughout the exposition, was already highly unusual, but now it is growing, like a cancer on the piece, causing the form itself to list badly. I think the comparison with the Pathetique is once again instructive. The slow introduction did indeed come twice more, which was at that point without precedent. But each appearance was shorter – dramatically shorter – than the one before. Here in the Tempest, the opposite is happening. The largo, contained at first, has now tripled in size. It’s probably not a great surprise that this triple-size, ghoulish interruption has the effect of taking us FAR from home, harmonically speaking. When the allegro comes storming back, we are not in the tonic of d minor, or the dominant a minor that the exposition ended in, but the distant port of F# minor. So, A minor: (MUSIC) F# minor. (MUSIC) So, really, the drama of the development – and boy, is there drama – it comes right at the top. The seismic events are those three successive arpeggios, and then that where-are-we key of f# minor. But everything else I played, while hugely intense, follows the script for developments that we already know. It uses material straight out of the exposition, (MUSIC) and its primary function is to get us out of the harmonic morass we landed in, and back to the dominant. (MUSIC) When we do get there, it turns out to be a LONG dominant – nothing in this movement happens easily. And nothing in it happens quite normally, either. Since the PIECE itself didn’t begin on a d minor chord, or, you know, with a standard allegro, of course the recapitulation can’t begin that way either. (MUSIC) No, our goal is that opening arpeggio (MUSIC), which means that the "return", such as it is, is not going to provide a sense of closure or security. It comes, instead, by way of another slowdown, another instance of the piece’s momentum grinding nearly to a halt. (MUSIC) It's a homecoming in the sense that it's the recapitulation. But a homecoming isn’t joyous if home isn’t a place where you want to be, a place where you feel safe.
