You are awesome!!! It’s a privilege to hear a wonderful performer like you articulate in words what the music is about…. This session explained so much what I felt but couldn’t put in words. Also the pedalling! I always thought I was doing it wrong as I’d use the pedal intuitively and realised it was not as marked in the score!! I recently acquired my “dream” piano and it is able to do a lot of that sort of pedalling without sounding muddled! I also realised from your description why I always feel emotional exhausted after playing the Moonlight. It’s gorgeous but not something I can play too often!! Thank you 🙏
This is amazing. Hereafter my appreciation of this Sonata will be completely on a different level. Thank so much for your changing the moonlight perception of this.
This was the greatest masterclass ever! Thank so much to go deeper and deeper in the details. The no. 14 was my first piano sonata learned, and with your lesson i've just felt more soul to it then never before!
The melody switch to natural "d" in the latter half of bar 39 usually fills me with horror, in a fantastic way! If sostenuto is added rightly, it leaves this tritone-ish background behind the melody, floating thru the gloomy atmosphere.
Love your masterclass and interpretation of this piece. You put into words my feelings on what this music is about and how to play. I interpret it in a similar way. I like the reference to an "echo". I hadn't conciously thought of it in that way. You made me cry with your descriptions and presentation of the piece in full.
this is great. I feel the same way as Yulia for many parts. There is one part I feel somewhat different, which is I'd feel Beethoven wouldn't ask for help, but rather, stuck in his pride that he is a genius and why is he treated that way by the nobleman, asking him to play in front of them, yet see him low and not worthy of marrying his daughter. This translate into some kind of sorrow and despair, and disappointment is human race. Also some parts of this piece I'd play it slowly, because I feel I am in the sorrow, and sorrow to me is slow, agonizing, so it cannot be going fast. It is like he went back to the place he lived, and feeling sad, and it is a torturing feeling, and it just went on and on, so it is a slow painful process
Excellent masterclass. I like the views on the various editions too. I agree full with your phrasing and I play it in the same way. Personally I never understood this piece properly until I had learnt the much more difficult third movement. That put everything into much clearer perspective. I've tried several editions myself, including an early Forster, but for performance of the entire three part sonata, Henle is my go to even though I don't always agree with the fingering.
Thank you for the nice explanations. Personally, I hate classical music, because I was forced to play the piano when I was young. Now, as an old man, I like to play rock and love songs with the guitar. But I also like to play the moonlight sonata together with the piano, as the sustain on the piano is much easier to achieve then on the guitar. In this way much room for different interpretations are possible 🤓 😋.
thank you so much for your comment - i am so happy people find it helpful and am so happy you enjoy different interpretations - probably very beautiful with the guitar
My best masterclass on this first movement would be to strongly advise people who simply aren't ready not to play it. Until you have around 10 or so classical sonatas under your belt, you have no way to even begin playing this piece sensibly. You should already know the finer points of pedaling, this is simply not the piece to learn pedaling. You should be well past the stage of basic insecurities about your technique. Lastly, there are three movements to this sonata and you should play all three and exercise care and attention to every passage that they are all of uniform quality and can be played with confidence. Do all that first and maybe we can have a masterclass.
And here I am. I began playing last year and this is the song I asked my teacher to teach me. 😂 I’m half way done learning, though you are absolutely correct. I am not satisfied with my peddling and spend 2-3 hours a day practicing.
That famous dotted eigth/sixteenth figue starting in the fifth measure : why do most pianists play the sixteenth not too slow, and also hesitate slightly after that note before playing the first note of the next measure ? Almost like they are playing it like a triplet rather than dotted eigth/sixteenth ? Instead of DAH..deDAH , they play it more DAH..DAHDAH. One pianist who playes it better to the spirit of dotted eigth/sixteenth, more in the "chopin funeral march " style, is Wilhlm Kempff : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_ZdMxFiUf9Q.html . Would you like to comment on that, Yulia ? ( by the way, you play wonderfully ! )
