Noctave
The piece
Beethoven wrote the three sonatas of Op. 31 in 1802; they were published in Zurich the following year. The second, in D minor, owes its nickname to Anton Schindler, his secretary, who claims that Beethoven, asked what it meant, replied: "Read Shakespeare's The Tempest"; the story is doubtful, but the name stuck. The finale, an Allegretto in three-eight time, turns endlessly around a small motif of four sixteenth notes, like a wheel that never stops. This version follows the Durand edition of 1915 and plays the repeat of the first part.
The challenge is evenness: seven minutes of sixteenth notes with almost no rest. Keep your hand light and close to the keys, and let the motif sing without hammering it; the dynamics come in waves, often a sudden crescendo that falls back to piano. At times the right hand comes down under the left to take part of the arpeggio: Noctave shows you these notes in colour. Work slowly at first, hand by hand, then together.