Mr. Beethoven, please explain yourself!?

Glinzek, dear friend, Mr Beethoven is just too canny to be so simply caught like that... :-))

The idiom -- which incidentally is still just as current now as then -- has a considerable sting in its tail, rather neatly captured in the primary definition from my copy of Brockhaus:

etw. hat sich gewaschen

etw. ist auf unangenehme oder angenehme Weise bemerkenswert

The sting, of course, being that it can 'jump either way', in an approbatory or disapprobatory fashion: 'angenehm' or 'unangenehm'... :-/

Given your professed sentiments about the work (which incidentally I fully share with you), you will obviously prefer to see the 'this one does the business' meaning to the fore, but that is of course precisely the luxury of certitude that our Mr Beethoven is neatly not obliging us with... :-)

'Twas ever thus... <g>

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Edit:

Since you specifically ask, I think that, as so often with these isolated quotes by anyone, we desperately need the context of the conversation (of whatever kind) in which the quoted saying arose. Both what preceded the remark as well as anything further that may have followed it.

As so helpfully pointed up by Herr 'Waschzuber', the idiom itself intensifies (for better, for worse) the context of what surrounds it. And guess what, it is precisely that critically essential context that we lack here, admittedly as reported to us..!

Mr B. had a long suit in dissatisfaction with his own work and not remotely such a long one in self-congratulation. Without the vital context, we would therefore have to speculate that this would be one of those moments of self-congratulation if an understanding of 'this one does the business' or 'this one is the bee's knees' can be reached, viably. That's quite an ask, with so little to support it directly, other than *our* high opinion of the work.

That leaves us with the dark(er) side of this particular 'moon' of an idiom, the 'unangenehm' of the definition. Where might that lead us..?

With all its evident perfections, there is something marble statue-like in op.22's polished surfaces and icily poised architectures. There is however a context to invoke here which we *can* observe, being the sonatas that immediately followed this particular one.

The next major essays in Sonata form, with the slightly hybrid op.26 'stuck in the middle', were the two quasi-una-fantasias, and those couldn't be further away from the form and aesthetic of op.22 if he tried. Is that the issue here, does the alternative, possible payload of this idiom touch upon an impatience with all this 'cold' perfection, compared with the 'space walks' of the two essays op.27? Not to forget the in any case very much more 'personal' content of op.26?

I have often wondered whether his choice to use that expression actually indicates his own ambiguity towards the work. Harboured a dark suspicion that the possibility for us having to understand it in the manner less congenial to our own rating of the work might well be more viable than we might actually like.

We all know who has the only real answer to these considerations, and he ain't telling... :-)

Warmly as always,

if i had to find an english idiom for it i would create something like "it was a blast". "hat sich gewaschen" if applied on things/emotions is a rather strong emphasizer. it makes bad worse and good better.

All you have to do is google this for your answer. It approximates to something like "This Sonata takes the cake" or "This Sonata is quite something".

Being as old as I am, I find it hard to articulate this subject too many times. However, if you wish to have knowledge on such a subject, I recommend Schroeder's "Beethoven: A Psychological Reference Book."