What are the names of the two piano sonatas Beethoven used the yellowhammer theme in?
The yellowhammer is a conspicuous, vocal and formerly common country bird, and has attracted human interest. Yellowham Wood and Yellowham Hill, near Dorchester, both derive their names from the bird. Robbie Burns' poem "The Yellow, Yellow Yorlin'" gets its title from a Scottish name for the yellowhammer, which is given an obvious sexual connotation: I met a pretty maid, an' unto her I said,/ "I wad fain fin' your yellow, yellow yorlin'." More factual descriptions of the bird and its behaviour can be found in John Clare's "The Yellowhammer's Nest" and "The Yellowhammer", whose final lines read:
Enid Blyton helped to popularise the bird's song as "little bit of bread and no cheese" in books such as The Ship of Adventure and Five Go Off in a Caravan, and wrote a poem called "The Yellow-hammer".
Beethoven's student, Carl Czerny, and biographer Anton Schindler, both suggested that the composer got the idea for the first four notes of his 5th symphony from the yellowhammer's call, although it is more likely that the opening of the 4th Piano Concerto was actually the work in question. Beethoven also used the yellowhammer theme in two piano sonatas, no. 21 in C major (the "Waldstein", Op.53) and No. 23 in F minor (the "Appassionata", Op.57).Olivier Messiaen often used birdsong as an inspiration for his music, and the yellowhammer features in Chronochromie, Catalogue d'oiseaux, La fauvette des jardins and Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, appearing in four movements of the last piece.An old legend links the yellowhammer to the Devil. Its tongue was supposed to bear a drop of his blood, and the intricate pattern on the eggs was said to carry a concealed, possibly evil, message; these satanic associations sometimes led to the persecution of the bird. The unusual appearance of the eggs also led to "scribble lark", an old name for the bird.
no. 21 in C major No. 23 in F minor