The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, is popularly known as the "Moonlight" Sonata. The work was completed in 1801^[1] and dedicated to his pupil, 17-year-old Countess Giulietta Guicciardi,^[2] with whom Beethoven was, or had been in love.^[3] The name "Moonlight" Sonata derives from a 1832 description of the first movement by poet Ludwig Rellstab, who compared it to moonlight shining upon Lake Lucerne.^[4][1] Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarts Piano Sonata No. ... Sonata (From Latin and Italian sonare, to sound), in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to cantata (Latin cantare, to sing), a piece sung. ... C-sharp minor is a minor scale based on C-sharp, consisting of the pitches C-sharp, D-sharp, E, F-sharp, G-sharp, A, B-sharp and C-sharp (harmonic minor scale). ... Opus, from the Latin word opus meaning work, is usually used in the sense of a work of art. In this sense the plural of opus, opera, is used to refer to the genre of music drama. ... “Beethoven” redirects here. ... Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Rellstab (April 13, 1799–November 27, 1860) was a German poet and music critic. ... For other uses, see Lake Lucerne (disambiguation). ...

Beethoven included the phrase "Quasi una fantasia" (Italian: Like 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 where the movements are arranged in a fast-slow-fast sequence. The fantasia (also English: , German: , French: ) is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. ... This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ...

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 mezzo-forte 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 remarked to Czerny "Surely I've written better things."^[5] This article includes a list of works cited or a list of external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations. ... Painting of Berlioz by Gustave Courbet, 1850. ... Carl Czerny, lithograph by Joseph Kriehuber, 1833 Carl Czerny (sometimes Karl; February 21, 1791 – July 15, 1857) was an Austrian pianist, composer and teacher. ...

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 5-10. A minuet, sometimes spelled menuet, is a social dance of French origin for two persons, usually in 3/4 time. ... Trio is generally used in any of the following ways: Three musicians playing the same or different musical instrument. ... D-flat major is a major scale based on D-flat, consisting of the pitches D-flat, E-flat, F, G-flat, A-flat, B-flat, C, and D-flat. ... In music, an enharmonic is a note which is the equivalent of some other note, but spelled differently. ... C# major is a major scale based on C#, consisting of the pitches C#, D#, E#, F#, G#, A#, B# (enharmonic to C natural) and C#. Its key signature consists of seven sharps. ... A-flat major is a major scale based on A-flat, consisting of the pitches A-flat, B-flat, C, D-flat, E-flat, F, G, and A-flat. ...

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) 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 flamboyant and skillful playing. Ludwig van Beethovens piano sonata in E-flat major, Op. ... Ludwig van Beethovens Piano Sonata No. ...

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." Charles Rosen (born May 5, 1927) is an American pianist and music theorist. ...

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. “Fortissimo” redirects here. ... “Fortissimo” redirects here. ...

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 [meaning movement] 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. See also piano history and musical performance, and Mute (music) for discussion of the associated terminology in notation, and details of the mechanisms involved. A short grand piano, with the top up. ... The piano has evolved technologically more than any other musical instrument, giving rise to difficult issues involving the performance of music written for earlier pianos. ... see also Guitar Mute A mute is a device which alters the timbre and/or reduces the volume of a musical instrument. ...

One option for dealing with this problem is to perform the work on a restored or replicated piano of the kind Beethoven knew. Proponents of historically informed performance using such pianos have found it feasible to perform the work respecting Beethoven's original direction. The historically informed performance, period performance, or authentic performance movement is an approach by musicians and scholars to research and perform works of classical music in ways similar to how they may have been performed when they were originally written. ...

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.

Audio samples

Image File history File links Moonlight. ... Image File history File links Beethoven_Moonlight_1st_movement. ... Image File history File links Beethoven_Moonlight_2nd_movement. ... Image File history File links Beethoven_Moonlight_3rd_movement. ...

Citations

Jenő Jandó (born 1952 in Pécs) is a Hungarian pianist. ... -1... Edmund Morris during a CNN interview in 1999 Edmund Morris (born May 27, 1940 in Nairobi, Kenya) is a writer best known for his biographies of United States presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. ... HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdochs News Corporation. ...

References

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

External links

• The Moonlight Sonata Page.
• Recordings of this Sonata by Alberto Cobo

Scores

• Piano Sheet Music of Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 14 (Moonlight) - out of copyright edition
• Score of the "Moonlight" Sonata, typeset and placed in the public domain by Chris Sawer, is part of the Mutopia project. Available at [1].
  • 1st Movement: Adagio sostenuto, local copy: PDF Version ( info)
  • 1st Movement: Adagio sostenuto, 2nd Movement: Allegretto and 3rd Movement: Presto agitato: PDF Version
• The Mutopia project has information about the composition Sonata No. 14 available here
• The William and Gayle Cook Music Library at the Indiana University School of Music has posted a scan of the score (Ricordi edition).
• Piano Sonata No. 14: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.
• Beethoven Scores You can preview scores while listening audio streams