Performing Moonlight Sonata

[Saul]

Didnt play this one for years, I had to use the score.

Anyways, here is the first movement of Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata in C sharp minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2csj4xrGhw

[Holden]

Saul, if you want to capture the essence of this movement you need to consider that the accompaniment is in the right hand and the melody is in the left hand. This is a very crude way of putting it but it sums up what you need to change in your playing of this movement

[Saul]

Very interesting observation, but it has so many different ways to play it.
I for one never play this piece the same way twice...

Thanks for listening and for your suggestion.

Regards,

Saul

[MishaK]

How about tuning that piano once in a while? 

As a small interpretive tip: this movement tuns into the dullest thing ever composed if you fail to vary the color of the accompaniment. Also, try to play the bass line more legato. All the anguish of this movement is in the harmonic shifts. Nothing happens in the nominal "melody" at all.

[Saul]

How about tuning that piano once in a while? 

As a small interpretive tip: this movement tuns into the dullest thing ever composed if you fail to vary the color of the accompaniment. Also, try to play the bass line more legato. All the anguish of this movement is in the harmonic shifts. Nothing happens in the nominal "melody" at all.

I tuned the piano 5 month ago, I should tune it again soon.
Please note, that I was using the score to play this piece, because I didnt play it for years. Naturally when I will play it by heart I will concentrate on the piece more carefully rather then trying to get the right chords and notes.

But anyways, thanks for listening and the comments.

[PerfectWagnerite]

That movement needs to be twice as fast, at about half note = 60. It is alla breve, not 4/4 time for crying out loud.

[paulb]

Didnt play this one for years, I had to use the score.

Anyways, here is the first movement of Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata in C sharp minor

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2csj4xrGhw

I wish i could watch you. But as i do not like Beethoven's music, I will not click the link.
Why don't you play some Maurice ravel and then i can watch

[MN Dave]

But as i do not like Beethoven's music, I will not click the link.

[Saul]

That movement needs to be twice as fast, at about half note = 60. It is alla breve, not 4/4 time for crying out loud.

You mean the 4th movement? lol

[PerfectWagnerite]

You mean the 4th movement? lol

You can find out for yourself how this sonata should be play.

http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/page/0,,1943867,00.html you will find A. Schiff's Beethoven PS lectures. Scroll down to where it says: Part four: towards the 'Pastoral' and the third lecture is about the "Moonlight".

[MishaK]

You also need to work on those polyrhythms. The right pinky needs to be completely independent from the rest of the right hand. I also don't know what the heck you're playing in those long arpeggios, but it ain't what's written.

I tuned the piano 5 month ago, I should tune it again soon.

Maybe some humidity/temperature control is in order then.

That movement needs to be twice as fast, at about half note = 60. It is alla breve, not 4/4 time for crying out loud.

PW, it's quarter note = 52.

[PerfectWagnerite]

PW, it's quarter note = 52.

The first movement is alla breve right? So the half note gets the count right? You think it should be common time and quarter note = 52?
That is a difficult movement to intepret, there are few dynamics markings of any sort other than a few decrescendos and the opening "sempre pp e senza sordino".

[MishaK]

The first movement is alla breve right? So the half note gets the count right? You think it should be common time and quarter note = 52?

Schiff says it's alla breve in the manuscript. I wasn't able to find a score online that actually shows that. I don't recall that in either of the several editions I own. I will have to check when I get home. In either case, I am no metronome-markings fascist. I think the movement can sustain a number of different ideas about tempo. Thinking you can just metronomically play half note = 52 and you will be golden is nonsense. Query at what tempo one would play it in the absence of any markings apart from "Adagio sostenuto"? I personally play it on the quicker side myself, though not quite as fast as Schiff, who to me seems to gloss over quite a bit of harmonic tensions at that pace.

In any case, poor Saul needs to get the notes right before he can speed it up.

[PerfectWagnerite]

There is a copy of the score here and it is alla breve all right. Don't know what the source of that score is though. Schiff says he read the original manuscript in Vienna and it says alla breve and I would have to take his word for it.

[MishaK]

PS: seems the quarter = 52 indication was added by Bülow. It's not in your link, e.g. So what exactly alla breve at Adagio sostenuto is supposed to be is still subject to interpretation. Schiff's is but one take on it.

[head-case]

There is a very interesting discussion of this in the disc that accompanies Benjamin Zander's recording of Beethoven Symphony #5 and #7 (Telarc) and also at

http://www.benjaminzander.com/news/detail.asp?id=158 

The discussion disc compares different performance styles of the sonata and the symphony and is very interesting, IMO.  He also makes the case that the metronome marking should be applied to the half note rather than to the quarter note.

Zander also advocates playing the opening of the 5th symphony exactly as written, no fermata.  The result is quite thrilling.

[Ephemerid]

What fascinates me even more than Schiff's take on the tempo is the fact that he holds the pedal down partly non-stop.  It sounds almost "impressionistic" the way he plays it!  Its certainly an interesting interpretation...

[MishaK]

What fascinates me even more than Schiff's take on the tempo is the fact that he holds the pedal down partly non-stop.  It sounds almost "impressionistic" the way he plays it!  Its certainly an interesting interpretation...

That's not that unsusual, though the preceding lecture concentrates the listener's attention to it.

[(poco) Sforzando]

What fascinates me even more than Schiff's take on the tempo is the fact that he holds the pedal down partly non-stop.  It sounds almost "impressionistic" the way he plays it!  Its certainly an interesting interpretation...

The actual effect Beethoven intended can only be achieved on a fortepiano with its different damper mechanism. We would read "senza sordini" to mean "without mutes"; it actually means "without dampers," that is, with the dampers continually raised to produce a shimmering or haze effect. But on a modern piano, if you keep your foot down to raise the dampers all through, you'll just get an awful blur. Perhaps what Schiff is doing is some careful and discreet half-pedalling to simulate the effect.

I do favor the alla breve indication, thinking of the pulse as two beats per measure rather than four. The tempo still should be "Adagio sostenuto," creating a sustained feeling within that pulse.

As for the triplets vs. dotted-eighth/sixteenths, it was a convention understood at least through Mozart's time that the sixteenth coincided with the final note of the triplet. (Compare Bach Brandenburg 2, written in 2/4 but heard as 6/8.) I don't know, however, if by Beethoven's time the sixteenth would have been intended literally, but just about everybody plays it that way AFAIK. Maybe except Saul. 

[(poco) Sforzando]

I wish i could watch you. But as i do not like Beethoven's music, I will not click the link.

C'mon, live a little.