Moonlight Sonata - Ludwig van Beethoven

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata (Mondscheinsonate in German), was completed in 1801. It is dedicated to his pupil, 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom Beethoven was, or had been, in love. It is one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas, as well as one of his most famous compositions for the piano.

 

The name "Moonlight" Sonata derives from an 1832 description of the first movement by music critic Ludwig Rellstab, who compared it to real moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne.

 

Beethoven included the phrase "Quasi una fantasia" (Italian: Almost a fantasy) in the title partly because the sonata does not follow the traditional movement arrangement of fast-slow-[fast]-fast. Instead, the Moonlight sonata possesses an end-weighted trajectory; with the rapid music held off until the third movement. To be sure, the deviation from traditional sonata form is intentional. In his analysis of the Moonlight sonata, German critic Paul Bekker states that “The opening sonata-allegro movement gave the work a definite character from the beginning... which succeeding movements could supplement but not change. Beethoven rebelled against this determinative quality in the first movement. He wanted a prelude, an introduction, not a proposition.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sonata consists of three movements:

1. Adagio sostenuto
2. Allegretto
3. Presto agitato

 

Adagio sostenuto

The first movement, in C♯ minor, is written in an approximate truncated sonata form. The movement opens with an octave in the left hand and a triplet figuration in the right. A melody that Hector Berlioz called a "lamentation", mostly by the right hand, is played against an accompanying ostinato triplet rhythm, simultaneously played by the right hand. The movement is played pianissimo or "very quietly", and the loudest it gets is mezzo forte or "moderately loud."

 

The adagio sostenuto has made a powerful impression on many listeners; for instance, Berlioz said of it that it "is one of those poems that human language does not know how to qualify." The work was very popular in Beethoven's day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself, who remarked to Carl Czerny, "Surely I've written better things."

 

Allegretto

The second movement is basically a relatively conventional scherzo and trio, a moment of relative calm written in D-flat major, the enharmonic equivalent of C♯ major, the more easily-notated parallel major of C♯ minor. Franz Liszt described the second movement as "a flower between two chasms." The slight majority of the movement is in piano, but a handful of sforzandos and forte-pianos helps to maintain the movement's cheerful disposition.

 

Presto agitato

The stormy final movement (C♯ minor), in sonata form, is the weightiest of the three, reflecting an experiment of Beethoven's (also carried out in the companion sonata, Opus 27, No. 1 and later on in Opus 101) placement of the most important movement of the sonata last. The writing has many fast arpeggios and strongly accented notes, and an effective performance demands lively and skillful playing.

 

Its combination of difficult chromaticism and prestissimo ascending arpeggios make it nearly one of the most difficult and virtuosic compositions for the solo piano, demanding supreme technical skill to play accurately according to Beethoven's own metronome marking.

 

It is thought that the C-sharp minor sonata, particularly the third movement, was the inspiration for Frédéric Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu, which manifests the key relationships of the sonata's three movements.

Of the final movement, Charles Rosen has written "it is the most unbridled in its representation of emotion. Even today, two hundred years later, its ferocity is astonishing."

 

Beethoven's heavy use of sforzando notes, together with just a few strategically located fortissimo passages, creates the sense of a very powerful sound in spite of the predominance of piano markings throughout. Within this turbulent sonata-allegro, there are two main themes, with a variety of variation techniques utilized.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._14_(Beethoven)