| ext">This well-known piano work was completed in | | | | proposed marriage to her. By all accounts, she was |
| 1801 when the composer Ludwig van Beethoven was | | | | amenable to the marriage, but because of her |
| 31. With the lengthy official handle of Piano Sonata No. | | | | aristocratic station, her family forbade the match. |
| 14 in C-sharp minor Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, | | | | While this romantic mishap is historically accurate, |
| No. 2, it’s not surprising that pianists over the | | | | some discount it as an inspiration for the Moonlight |
| years have preferred to call it by the much shorter | | | | Sonata. This school of thought believes instead that |
| nickname of Moonlight Sonata. This is perhaps | | | | the piece captures Beethoven’s reflections on |
| the best-known and most frequently recorded of | | | | the death of a friend. One of the greatest pianists of |
| Beethoven’s piano sonatas. But did you know | | | | the twentieth century, Edwin Fischer, pointed to areas |
| that it is not, in fact, a pure sonata in form? | | | | where the Moonlight Sonata’s first movement |
| The Moonlight Sonata departs from conventional | | | | bears a striking resemblance to Mozart’s opera |
| sonata form, whose 3 or 4 movements are | | | | Don Giovanni, from the first act where the |
| characterized by a structure of fast-slow-(fast)-fast. In | | | | Commendatore is murdered. Thus the melancholy |
| the Moonlight Sonata, by contrast, Beethoven opens | | | | atmosphere created by Beethoven in the Moonlight |
| with an Adagio (slow) movement, a quite deliberate | | | | Sonata’s first movement is associated with the |
| break with tradition. Beethoven was experimenting | | | | idea of impending death, rather than thwarted love. |
| during the time of this work’s composition, and | | | | Whatever its inspiration, the nickname Moonlight |
| one of his experiments was to place the most | | | | Sonata was attached to the piece only after the |
| important movement of a sonata last instead of first. | | | | composer’s death. In 1832, several years after |
| The second movement of the piece, Allegretto, is a | | | | Beethoven’s demise, the poet Ludwig Rellstab |
| fairly conventional scherzo, but the third movement, the | | | | described the piano work as reminding him of a |
| Presto Agitato, is highly emotional, even stormy, and | | | | boat visiting the wild places on Lake Lucerne by |
| quite different from a more conventional sonata | | | | moonlight. The name has stuck fast in the nearly |
| ending. While the more contemplative first movement | | | | two hundred years since. |
| may be attempted by an intermediate student, the last | | | | If you have been taking piano for some time and have |
| movement requires vigorous and energetic and | | | | mastered popular sonatinas and sonatas by the likes |
| expert playing. | | | | of Clementi and Scarlatti, you may be ready to tackle |
| The Moonlight Sonata is believed to have been | | | | the Moonlight Sonata, at least the first movement. Any |
| dedicated to the Countess Giuliana Guicciardi, one of | | | | serious student of the keyboard must become familiar |
| Beethoven’s pupils at the time he composed it. | | | | with this work. Find a good recording perhaps by |
| The musician and the young Countess fell in love after | | | | Edwin Fischer or Andras Schiff and take in the |
| only a few lessons, and he is even supposed to have | | | | work of this master composer. |