“Moonlight Sonata” By Beethoven: Learn To Play It! (At least the part everybody knows)
Beethoven was never much for rules so why obey them for one of his most famous pieces?
Even the title of the piece popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata bears reference to Beethoven’s love of not doing things the way people expected. He called it Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia which means Sonata in the style of a fantasy or literally “Almost a fantasy”.
Listen to most music on the radio today and it follows a very similar style: It starts with a little bit of instrumental introduction, then the singer sings what is known as the verse. Then it goes in to the chorus, that’s the part that you often remember about the song which is why it is also called the hook in most songs. Then the song goes back to the verse, sometimes with different words and after that, the chorus again. Then we get to the bridge where the song changes pretty drastically but eventually makes its way back to the chorus (often played twice) and then a little instrumental at the end. The whole song takes about 4 minutes but rarely more than 5 minutes. Songs on the radio today are fairly predictable.
In Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven’s day, they had the Sonata. It was a very predictable style and although we’ll save a discussion of sonata form for another article, what defined a sonata form was a fast and lively beginning with a slow movement somewhere in the middle and ending with a medium and then fast tempo movements or just a fast movement. Moonlight Sonata is slow, medium, fast.
By the way, in case you’re wondering, a Fantasy is often a piece of music based on an improvisatory style. In other words, by throwing in the word Fantasy (fantasia) Beethoven is giving himself license to do whatever he wants. (Not that he needed it. He often did whatever he wanted anyway)
Every piece of art has to have a story and if they don’t, we romantic humans with big hearts will often make up a story to give a piece of art more personality. Here are the two stories behind Moonlight Sonata. Beethoven wasn’t much in to giving piano lessons to people and there seems to be evidence that he wasn’t all that personable as a general rule but around 1800 Beethoven was giving lessons to a royal family who was most likely paying him well when he met Countess Giulietta Guicciardi.
He fell in love with her (artists fall hard, you know) and wanted to marry her. Sadly, Beethoven being a commoner couldn’t marry royalty. Instead, she married another amateur composer. Beethoven dedicated this piece to her and judging by the not so happy sound of it, one wouldn’t think that it was an upcoming wedding gift. If you believe this story, you can certainly hear the sorrow of a broken heart present in this piece.
On the other hand, some stories, far more boring, say that Beethoven visited Lake Balaton, located in Hungary. (yawn) If a lake was his inspiration, it must have been raining when he visited. We’ll let you decide which story you like better.
The term “Moonlight Sonata” was given to this piece by Ludwig Rellstab who said that the piece sounded like moonlight shining down on Lake Lucerne. (Yes, another lake.) Beethoven didn’t live long enough to know of his piece as Moonlight Sonata.
The piece starts with a slow movement that is absolutely beautiful and when a pianist plays it, they can’t help but hear the sorrow that comes from the piece. It is commonly known that the first movement is played with dampers and very softly the entire way as to not only paint a picture of sorrow but also deep reflection by a tired soul. (As you learn it, see what the piece says to you.)
The second movement sounds much more like a classical period piece, a little more lighthearted than the movements surrounding it. This is probably the least liked movement as many people only know the first and last movements.
The third movement, a technically challenging and musically complicated composition speaks to anger and not just inner anger but anger that bursts out of the soul. As you listen to it, think about what the inspiration for such a piece would have been.
This piece was wildly popular in Beethoven’s day. In fact, he got tired of hearing it himself. He once said, “Surely, I’ve written better things”.
If you’re about to embark on learning this piece, you’re most likely starting with the first movement and quite possibly, not playing the second and third. That’s ok with Beethoven as some of his students and other musicians of the period often did not play complete sonatas.
Now that you know a little bit more about the piece, dive in and have a great time with it.
To learn the first movement of Moonlight Sonata (that’s the theme — the part everyone recognizes) click on the link below to learn about our audio CD course (not a video — an audio course with the original sheet music of the first movement):