Beethoven: "Moonlight Sonata" (with analysis and commentary on performance problems) 

When I was 14 I heard the "presto agitato" and it gave me chills! I was so taken that I pleaded with god to let me play it! I was an early advanced student at that point but I took the plunge anyway. That was the start of my lifelong love of classical piano. Wilhelm Kempff on Deutsch Grammophon was it for me. Then the Appassionata followed by the Waldstein etc. So when I ran across this video I just smiled and couldn't wait to hear what you had to say. I prefer slightly faster tempi as it can get too agonizing slow. I am for lifting the pedal every few measures. My ears demand it. :) Beautifully played Cole. It brings back wonderful memories from a long time ago. Thanks.

I love your videos. Full stop. Thank you.

Bravo on a very well thought out and educational video! However, as a Classical-era fortepianist, I must advocate in favor Beethoven’s desire of raising the dampers for the entire performance of this movement. Beethoven wrote a letter saying that a Schantz piano was the ideal instrument for this sonata. I’ve played on an original Schantz and the effect with the dampers raised was more beautiful and haunting than I’ve experienced on any other instrument. 16:15 Czerny’s notes on Beethoven’s performances are a valuable resource, yet one must remember that Czerny wrote from the perspective of fortepianos in the 1830s. Due to the rapid evolution of fortepianos, the fortepianos and musical practices were much different in the 1830s than earlier in the century when the Moonlight Sonata was written. 17:05 I wonder if performances on fortepianos sound like mush to your ears because you are accustomed to today’s very clean approach to pedaling. When I first switched to fortepianos, there were many aspects of performance practice - including the use of the pedal - which were jarring to my ears. Over time, the blurring pedal effect became desirable. We must be careful not to dismiss documentary evidence because something doesn’t sound right to modern ears. I would be curious to learn which fortepiano recordings you referenced because one cannot assume the right era of fortepiano is used in recordings. For practical reasons, many people record on one “compromise” instrument for all music during the Classical era. So, you might hear a 6-octave 1820 Graf which is very different than a 5-octave 1800 Walter (or Schantz). It is hard to overstate just how much pianos changed during those 20 years - and throughout Beethoven’s lifetime. The blurring effect on an ~1800 piano is lost on some instruments from only five years later. Even the subito piano effect you refer to at 19:24 works on the appropriate fortepiano. So, when making comparisons of Beethoven’s markings, it’s especially important that one uses the instruments available when the piece was composed. To be clear, I am not trying to start an argument. Rather, I want to include the perspective of a fortepianist in this discussion. I have great respect for your video and, as a fellow RU-vidr, I know how much work goes into them.

What a treat today's topic is! Very interesting commentary on tempo and pedaling. This Sonata is popular for a reason: there is something calming and gentle in 1st movement's arpeggios, its' almost hypnotizing. Beautiful and light 2nd movement, and full of fire and passion 3rd movement that goes on and on, almost obsessively, as if Beethoven couldn't part with it. Excellent performance, as usual, bravo!

a finely adjusted damper pedal allows for several pedal shadings. The specific piano and room/hall acoustic offer creative flexibility

I certainly prefer a more regular, more metronomic approach to the first movement of Moonlight Sonata and really Beethoven in general. Beethoven with rubato just sounds wrong to my ears. So yes, I subscribe more to the slow 4/4 approach that you said Beethoven didn't want. I also don't follow the sempre pianissimo marking. I start off pianissimo and I end pianissimo of course, but I let the notes dictate my dynamics rather than abiding by the sempre pianissimo mark. There are parts I play more mezzo forte(like that part that goes B, C natural, A#, B and then repeats, I crescendo into that and play the C natural as if it was marked sf, accenting the ninth interval and then dialing back for the seventh and resolution) or even forte(the diminished seventh arpeggios), but there are also places where I hold back the dynamics and play more piano/pianissimo. And that's cause I just feel like there has to be those mezzo forte and forte moments, if I play the entire thing pianissimo, it again sounds wrong, even though I know there are effective interpretations that do that. But I prefer the more dramatic interpretation with crescendos and diminuendos and fortes and mezzo fortes.

Thank you, Cole. Another fabulous and fascinating upload which certainly brought me to a much better understanding of how to pedal and determine the tempo for the first movement of this ever-popular Beethoven Sonata (and how I smiled in delight with your deployment of the underused technical terms ‘mush’ and ‘blur’!). Of course, your performance that followed the most illuminating introduction was certainly far removed from any mush or blur: it was just exquisite. You really are an exceptional pianist! (Though I’m concerned to see your left thumb still held together by sticking plaster: it is taking some time to heal following from your misadventure with the vegetable peeler . . . ) There are other aspects to the story behind this music that I would have loved you to explore. Beethoven was in his early thirties when he completed this Sonata in 1801, and it followed on from music he had been commissioned to write - a major aspect of his professional life as a musician. But this Sonata was not commissioned. How significant is the difference between what he was ‘obliged’ to create for patrons and what he chose to create for his own satisfaction and ‘emotional release’? (After all, this was an agonising period in his life. For the four previous years, he’d been suffering from tinnitus, and he was having trouble discerning high notes. He feared the situation was irreversible and tried to keep it secret. He became reclusive, afraid of what people would say when they learned that Vienna’s foremost piano virtuoso was going deaf. Apart from the social stigma, he knew that it would probably end his brilliant performing career - and it did.) The dedication of this Sonata is to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, who was 18 in 1801 when she became his pupil, and reputedly beautiful (known as “La Bella Guicciardi”). Giulietta's aunt had brought the girls to Vienna from Hungary to marry off one of her own daughters. In order to attract suitable husbands, aristocratic women were encouraged to play an instrument. The cello sat between the legs, and the violin required rigorous slicing movements; the piano was considered far more ladylike! Josephine von Brunswick and her sister, Therese, got Beethoven to teach them. He admired the lovely Josephine, but she quickly found a husband, so Beethoven turned his attention to Giulietta. She helped lift his despair and he referred to her as a “dear, enchanting girl” in a letter to his friend, Franz Wegeler. Furthermore, he confided to Wegeler that he was thinking of marriage, but that the aristocratic young woman wasn’t of his station. In 1803, Giulietta married Count von Gallenberg and they moved to Naples. When Anton Schindler (Beethoven’s secretary and early biographer) later met Gallenberg at the Kärntnertor Theatre in Vienna, Beethoven was prompted to reminisce about Giulietta: he claimed that she loved him more than her husband, and that after her wedding, she’d come to him crying but he had spurned her. Knowing of her financial hardships, though, he’d arranged through a friend to give Gallenberg money. It would seem that Beethoven never entirely forgot his “dear, enchanting girl” because after his death in 1827, friends discovered several items tucked away in a secret compartment of a desk drawer. Among them was the “Immortal Beloved” letter and two portrait miniatures - one of which was believed to be Giulietta Guicciardi. And we might suppose that Giulietta would have been thrilled to be the dedicatee of this Sonata, but in 1852, when Otto Jahn interviewed her for his biography of Beethoven, she painted quite a different picture! She told Jahn that Beethoven had originally given her his Rondo in G, but when he suddenly needed to dedicate that work to the sister of his foremost patron, he offered her the “Moonlight” instead. This story seems to be factually incorrect and maybe indicates that Jahn didn’t gain Giulietta’s trust, and since she had been suggested as a possible subject for the “Immortal Beloved” letter, she didn’t want any more scrutiny about a possibly more intimate relationship with Ludwig! We’ll never know whether the onset of his deafness gave rise to this amazing music, or whether it was unrequited love for an aristocratic woman. The Sonata is certainly charged with every possible emotion we can feel . . . so I am inclined to see it not so much as ‘moonlight’, but more as ‘amore’ - for what else can excite such passion? What do you think motivated the creation of this music, Cole?

nice

I'd love for you to do an analysis on the op 2 no 3 as I am studying it right now and very curious on your thoughts and opinions on several parts in the movements (like what Beethoven had in mind with an 'Allegro con brio' for example, or how the dynamic changes in the fourth mvt should be interpreted, I don't have access to my book atm or I could formulate 10 more questions :c). Obviously these aren't small projects, just saying I am looking forward to when you do decide to do it ^^

Very interesting video ; you managed to teach me a few things about a piece that I felt I knew like the back of my hand. About the "senza sordino": are you sure it isn't referring to the pedal that exists on pianofortes from the XIXth century, that dampened the sound thanks to a layer of cloth? It was halfway between the soft pedal of the modern grand and the middle pedal of upright pianos, from what I understand. The use of the singular "sordino" seems to me to point, if slightly, in this direction. Obviously, this word could refer to either this pedal or the actual dampers, but if B. had said "sordini" there would be no doubt at all. The fact that this indication follows "delicatissimamente" and "sempre pianissimo" could also point towards the fact that pianists may have been tempted to use the "sordino" to produce a softer sound, which B. didn't want because it would have affected the tone of the piano. However, in this case, it seems strange that he wrote "E senza sordino" instead of "MA senza sordino" ("and" instead of "but"). This small detail aside - and I think, like you, that instead on dwelling on sterile historical debates, one should perform this sonata according to good sense and musical intuition - it was again a very informative video, and I thank you for it!

👏👍😍