One must look long and hard to find a piano pupil who hasn’t studied Beethoven’s two “sonate facile” op. 49. They are not only relatively easy to play but highly lyrical and effective, ideally combining joy in music-making with a mastery of early classical literature. The two works were composed much earlier than the opus number suggests. Beethoven wrote them around 1797/98, during a time when he also worked on one of his most important sonatas, the “Grande Sonate pathétique” op. 13.

Jonatha...