The Truth About The Moonlight Sonata

0:00 Introduction: one of the most famous pieces in the world 0:37 Things about the piece that are not so familiar 1:14 The historical context 1:55 The ’sacred tradition’ 2:29 Beethoven is going deaf 3:00 Two new sonatas 3:08 The career-defining genre 3:41 Sonata quasi una Fantasia - an experimental approach to the genre 5:17 “without dampers” 5:56 The fortepiano of Beethoven’s time 6:18 The tempo and the sonority 6:53 Impressionistic sound 7:52 An enormous hit 8:22 ’Moonlight’ was never Beethoven’s title 9:01 Connection with Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ 13:08 The beginning 13:41 The ‘funeral march’ melody and Op 26 15:13 A ghost scene 15:49 The ’2nd subject’ lament 16:00 Dissonance 16:33 The dedicatee 17:45 The development section 18:52 The recapitulation 19:09 The coda 19:26 The whole form flows 19:44 The combination of classical form and improvisation 20:11 The other movements 20:40 The first movement played on a fortepiano The topic of this video is the first movement of Beethoven’s second ’Sonata quasi Una Fantasia’ Op 27, more commonly known today as the Moonlight Sonata, with a discussion about some of the less familiar aspects of the music’s genesis (especially its probable connection with Mozart’s Don Giovanni) and challenging some very old misconceptions about its title, its meaning, its tempo, its pedalling and even the way it is meant to sound. The video ends with a recording of the complete first movement, played on a fortepiano. Following Beethoven’s instructions that the dampers be lifted from the strings throughout the movement, a poetic, mysterious and ghostly sound world is created in which each sonority dissolves impressionistically into the next. This channel is very grateful to an anonymous donor for the use of a fortepiano for the recording of the first movement at the end of the video. Matthew King has never been a good speller - we apologise for the misspelling of the word ’neapolitan’ in the video. Beethoven: Sonata quasi Una Fantasia Op 27 no. 2 (first movement) Pianist: Matthew King A recording of Mozart’s trio from Scene 1 of Don Giovanni (the death of the Commendatore) can be seen here (at 10:52) A while ago, Andras Schiff gave a fascinating Wigmore Hall lecture on this sonata. Here’s the recording: #Beethoven #Moonlightsonata #themusicprofessor ⦿ SUPPORT US ON PATREON ⦿ ⦿ BUY US A Kofi ⦿ ⦿ Support us on PayPal ⦿ ⦿ SUBSCRIBE TO THIS CHANNEL ⦿ Edited by Ian Coulter ( ) Produced and directed by Ian Coulter & Matthew King