moonlight sonata

Beethoven included the phrase "Quasi una fantasia" (Italian: Almost a fantasy) in the title because the sonata does not follow the traditional sonata pattern where the first movement is in regular sonata form, and the movements are arranged in a fast-slow-fast sequence.

Beethoven wrote this sonata in 1801 and dedicated it to his pupil, the 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, with whom he was (or, according to some accounts, had been) in love. In 1832, several years after Beethoven's death, the German poet and music critic Ludwig Rellstab compared the music of the first movement to moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne, giving rise to the work's byname.

The "Moonlight" Sonata is one of Beethoven's most popular works, and it is frequently performed and recorded.

Form

The sonata has three movements:

1. Adagio sostenuto
2. Allegretto
3. Presto agitato

The first movement is written in a kind of truncated sonata form. A melody that Hector Berlioz called a "lamentation" is played (mostly by the right hand) against an accompanying ostinato triplet rhythm. The movement is also played pianissimo or "very quietly", and the loudest it gets is mf or "moderately loud". The movement has made a powerful impression on many listeners; for instance, Berlioz wrote 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, who wrote "Surely I've written better things."

The second movement is a relatively conventional minuet and trio; a moment of relative calm written in D-flat major. This key signature is enharmonically equivalent to C-sharp major, that is, the tonic major for the work as a whole. The slightly odd sound of the first eight bars seems to be the result of the minuet starting in the "wrong" key; i.e. the dominant key of A-flat major. The music settles into D-flat only in the second phrase, bars 5-8.

The stormy final movement, 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) of placing the most important movement of a sonata last. The writing has many fast arpeggios and strongly accented notes, and an effective performance demands flamboyant and skillful playing. Beethoven was known to break hammers and strings when he played, and it is easy to imagine this happening when he performed this movement.

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."

The musical dynamic that predominates in the third movement is in fact piano. It seems that 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 overall dynamic.

Beethoven's pedal mark

At the opening of the work, Beethoven included a written direction that the sustain pedal should be depressed for the entire duration of the first movement. The Italian reads: "Si deve suonare tutto questo pezzo delicatissimamente e senza sordino" ("The entire piece must be played as delicately as possible and without dampers."). The modern piano has a much longer sustain time than the instruments of Beethoven's day. Therefore, his instruction cannot be followed by pianists playing modern instruments without creating an unpleasantly dissonant sound.

One option for dealing with this problem is to perform the work on a restored or replicated piano of the kind Beethoven knew. Exponents of historically informed performance using such pianos have found it feasible to perform the work respecting Beethoven's original direction.

For performance on the modern piano, most performers today try to achieve an effect similar to what Beethoven asked for using pedal changes only where necessary to avoid excessive dissonance. For instance, the Ricordi edition of the score posted at the external link given below does include pedal marks throughout the first movement. These are the work of a 20th century editor, meant to facilitate performance on a modern instrument. "Half pedaling"—a technique involving a partial depression of the damper pedal—is also often used to simulate the shorter sustain of the early nineteenth century pedal. Charles Rosen (reference below) suggests both half-pedaling and changing the pedal a fraction of a second late.

Score

Score of the "Moonlight" Sonata, typeset and placed in the public domain by Chris Sawer, is part of the Mutopia project.

• 1st Movement: Adagio sostenuto
  • PDF Version (info)
• 2nd Movement: Allegretto
  • PDF Version
• 3rd Movement: Presto agitato
  • PDF Version

Other versions of the score:

• The William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University School of Music has posted a scan of the score (Ricordi edition).
• The Mutopia project version given above is also posted at [1]; where other formats are available.

Audio samples

In popular culture

Since the sonata is well known, it often appears in works of popular culture. For details and a list, see The Moonlight Sonata in popular culture.

References

• Charles Rosen (2002). Beethoven's Piano Sonatas: A Short Companion. Yale University Press. 0300090706.

External links

• The Moonlight Sonata Page.
• The Mutopia project has information about the composition Sonata No. 14 available here