Moonlight sonata

[SKYIO]

Is moonlight sonata regarded as the best piano piece in history ?

Well Iv fallen in love with the first and third bit, not a fan of the middle bit thats all happy.


Anyway Id really appreciate some piano pieces that can rival this piece, suggestions ?

[Wakefield]

Guys: this is serious, we need to stop all this madness... 

[SKYIO]

heh ?

[Jo498]

Try some other famous Beethoven sonatas, e.g. op. 13 "Pathetique", op.57 "Appassionata" and op.31, Nr. 2 "The tempest". Also Chopin's sonatas Nr.2 and Nr.3. Somewhat similar in mood are also shorter pieces by Chopin, try some of the Nocturnes, the first Ballade, the Fantaise-Impromptu.

[Mandryka]

Is moonlight sonata regarded as the best piano piece in history ?

Well Iv fallen in love with the first and third bit, not a fan of the middle bit thats all happy.


Anyway Id really appreciate some piano pieces that can rival this piece, suggestions ?

I agree with you.

Moonlight was NOT Beethoven's name for it. It has nothing to do with Beethoven's intentions.

There's a performance issue in the first movement. Beethoven wanted the dampers off in the first movement. No one does this on a modern piano that I know, except for Schiff and Gulda in his first recording of it for DECCA. It's quite a brave thing do because you get that reverberation. Gulda stopped doing it after that DECCA recording

Personally I like the way Schiff plays it -- I like the fast tempos. And I like the halo of bass which the reverb gives to the first movement. A real spooky castle with ghosts and rattling chains at the witching hour.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ARNRFubbnyc

You've got to stop thinking of that first movement as lovers in a row boat on a still lake in summer, and start thinking Hammer House of Horror.

The finale is one of those Promethian acts of defiance, like the finale of the Hammerklavier and the Grosse Fugue. How it makes sense in the context of the other two movements is an interesting and difficult question.

[Jo498]

I once made up a cloak-and-dagger-program for the sonata: hero crosses moonlit lake in boat to get to his girl - serenade/love scene - hero is discovered and has to fight for his live and flee.
This is of course nonsense; I do not think the sonata has a program.
Despite "quasi una fantasia" Beethoven apparently felt that some the "conventional" contrasts of mood, tonality, tempo were needed and the little central movement provides all of them.

[SKYIO]

I agree with you.

Moonlight was NOT Beethoven's name for it. It has nothing to do with Beethoven's intentions.

There's a performance issue in the first movement. Beethoven wanted the dampers off in the first movement. No one does this on a modern piano that I know, except for Schiff and Gulda in his first recording of it for DECCA. It's quite a brave thing do because you get that reverberation. Gulda stopped doing it after that DECCA recording

Personally I like the way Schiff plays it -- I like the fast tempos. And I like the halo of bass which the reverb gives to the first movement. A real spooky castle with ghosts and rattling chains at the witching hour.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ARNRFubbnyc

You've got to stop thinking of that first movement as lovers in a row boat on a still lake in summer, and start thinking Hammer House of Horror.

The finale is one of those Promethian acts of defiance, like the finale of the Hammerklavier and the Grosse Fugue. How it makes sense in the context of the other two movements is an interesting and difficult question.

I never did think of it like two lovers on a lake, or a hammer house of horror. I still prefer https://www.youtube.com/v/4Tr0otuiQuU, I love the slow dramatic style of the first bit, and love the fast amazing style of the last bit. 

[Wakefield]

heh ?

No offense intended, SKIO.

It's just that to choose a particular work as the most perfect example of a musical genre or for an instrument (even forgetting for one moment that perfection doesn't admit degrees), it's quite a statement... It can be an entertaining game, but nothing more at all. 

P.S.: Of course, I'm not suggesting you're not aware of this because I'm sure you're. 

[Brian]

Personally I like the way Schiff plays it -- I like the fast tempos. And I like the halo of bass which the reverb gives to the first movement. A real spooky castle with ghosts and rattling chains at the witching hour.

https://www.youtube.com/v/ARNRFubbnyc

Whoa. That is an incredible effect.

[Mandryka]

I never did think of it like two lovers on a lake, or a hammer house of horror. I still prefer https://www.youtube.com/v/4Tr0otuiQuU, I love the slow dramatic style of the first bit, and love the fast amazing style of the last bit.

Here's a good slow one from Arrau, who makes it into an epic psychological journey as usual -- and that's the way it should be IMO


https://www.youtube.com/v/6XUKtdMRR-M

Here's good old Schnabel, very good the way he brings out the  bass line

https://www.youtube.com/v/mxNimf0TEG8

Recently I found my ears pricking up listening to  Lim

https://www.youtube.com/v/Tc0adcAKWrc

A question for the Beethoven experts here -- which is more meh, op 27/1 or the first movement of op 27/2 played slowly? I can't bear slow performances, even Harald Bauer and Moravec. 

[Mandryka]

Whoa. That is an incredible effect.

Yes. I'll have it played at my funeral I think.

[prémont]

I consider the first movement to be a mourning piece, and the last movement to depict desperation. In between is a short movement depicting a shortlasting hope. IMO this sonata is one of Beethoven´s greatest works. I think it is about death. In the first movement he reflects upon the thought of his own future death - like Froberger in a meditative allemande - , in the second movement he nourishes a fallible hope. until the reality overwhelms him, and the rest is desperation.

[North Star]

Everyone really ought to listen to this Schiff lecture on the piece, and not only for his singing of Schubert.

https://www.youtube.com/v/fW_Dv_GNQAo

[Mandryka]

Here's a paper on the sonata

http://amatterofmind.org/Pierres_PDFs/EUROPEAN_ART/BOOK_III/2._THE_TRUTH_ABOUT_BEETHOVEN%27S_SO_CALLED_MOONLIGHT_SONATA..pdf

[Dax]

And some interesting observations re performance.

http://classicalmusicblog.com/2007/09/beethoven-sonata.html

Some time ago, the only recording I owned was by Horowitz: curious to see how he played the notated dotted quaver-semiquaver rhythm in the 1st movement (precisely or relative to the triplet), I found with some amusement that he does neither - just does a tenuto and obscures the whole question!

[jochanaan]

The "Moonlight's" first movement gained the reputation it did, quite frankly, because unlike most of Beethoven's other piano music, it can be easily played by amateurs. 0:) Yet it was groundbreaking in one way: the instruction "sempre con pedale." It would appear to be one of the first compositions where pedal use is essential. Still, I would not put this sonata quite on the level of, say, Opus 57, Op. 106, or Op. 111., all of which are truly magisterial.

[jochanaan]

...A question for the Beethoven experts here -- which is more meh, op 27/1 or the first movement of op 27/2 played slowly? I can't bear slow performances, even Harald Bauer and Moravec.

There is a fine art to playing slow.  It must have life.  That doesn't mean to play loud, or faster than average!  One can play slow and soft, and still play every note with weight.  When I play something like Opus 27/2's first movement, I like to keep a very steady tempo; not metronomic, but a slow heartbeat, so it becomes clear that I'm not playing it slow just because I can't play it fast.  At such a tempo, phrasing is everything.

[Mandryka]

There is a fine art to playing slow.  It must have life.  That doesn't mean to play loud, or faster than average!  One can play slow and soft, and still play every note with weight.  When I play something like Opus 27/2's first movement, I like to keep a very steady tempo; not metronomic, but a slow heartbeat, so it becomes clear that I'm not playing it slow just because I can't play it fast.  At such a tempo, phrasing is everything.

Yes well I'd already contradicted myself when I said that I liked some of Arrau's recordings of it. The slowest I've found in the first movement is Radu Lupu.

[jochanaan]

Yes well I'd already contradicted myself when I said that I liked some of Arrau's recordings of it. The slowest I've found in the first movement is Radu Lupu.

Somewhere in my LP stacks (boxes, actually; they're in storage) is a recording of Arrau, Bernard Haitink and the Concertgebouw playing Brahms' Piano Concerto #1.  Magisterial! I can imagine that he would indeed play Opus 27/2 very beautifully indeed.

[SKYIO]

jochanaan@ could you be tad more specific ? I have no idea what Opus means and youtube isnt helping much either.



Also im still trying to get time to listen to all of these. I'l be back with a review, someday