Texture in a Beethoven sonata

[moze]

If some one said what's the texture of say a piano sonata (could be 1, 2, 7 etc) by Beethoven what are we looking out, basically what are we going to tell them?

I've been reading about texture though am still kind of confused in how to describe a composition in terms of texture, though for this question specifically regarding Beethoven's sonatas.

Thanks

[heatherreichgott]

Texture often refers to the overall "thickness" or "thinness" of piano writing. A few groups of octaves and fifths, especially if slow, would be a thin texture. A fast four-part dissonant fugue would be a thick texture. You could more loosely describe texture as the atmospheric effect created by the speed, density and layering of notes, for example: fluid, brusque, heavy, gloomy, sparkling, or buttery smooth. Some people use texture as a technical term to refer to the number of voices in a piece, so they're looking for homophonic, polyphonic etc.

[NLewis]

This is an immensely difficult topic. All of the Beethoven sonatas have different textures. The easiest (and quickest) way to describe texture is in the number of voices. Describe it in terms of monophony, polyphony, heterophony (unlikely for Beethoven piano sonata), etc. Then you can describe the figuration, etc.

[MaryG]

I agree that Beethoven’s compositions have different textures. At least at the last disk of his works performed by Maxim Rysanov, Kristina Blaumane and Jacob Katsnelson, which I’ve found at onyxclassics site, they are definitely all different!