The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, marked Quasi una fantasia, Opus 27, No. 2, is a piano sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven. It was completed in 1801 and dedicated in 1802 to his pupil Countess Julie ‘Giulietta’ Guicciardi. The name Moonlight Sonata (German: Mondscheinsonate) grew popular later, likely after Beethoven’s death. The piece is one of Beethoven’s most popular compositions for the piano, and it was a popular favourite even in his own day. Beethoven wrote the Moonlight Sonata in his early thirties, after he had finished with some commissioned work; there is no evidence that he was commissioned to write this sonata.
1st Movement. In C-sharp minor and alla breve, is written in modified sonata-allegro form. The movement opens with an octave in the left hand and a triplet figuration in the right. A melody mostly by the left hand, is played against an accompanying ostinato triplet rhythm, simultaneously played by the right hand. The movement is played pianassimo (pp) or “very quietly”, and the loudest it gets is piano (p) or “quietly”.The adagio sostenuto tempo has made a powerful impression on many listeners; for instance, Berlioz commented that it “is one of those poems that human language does not know how to qualify”. Beethoven’s student Carl Czerny called it “a nocturnal scene, in which a mournful ghostly voice sounds from the distance”. The movement was very popular in Beethoven’s day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself, who remarked to Czerny, “Surely I’ve written better things”.
2nd Movement. A relatively conventional scherzo in triple time, with the first section of the scherzo not repeated. It is a seeming moment of relative calm written in D-flat major, the more easily notated enharmonic equivalent of C-sharp major, the parallel major of the first movement’s key, C♯ minor. The slight majority of the movement is in piano (p), but a handful of sforzandos (sfz) and fortepianos (fp) helps to maintain the movement’s cheerful disposition. It is the shortest of the movements and has been called the “less popular” interlude between the first and third movements. Franz Liszt is said to have described the second movement as “a flower between two chasms”.
3rd Movement. The stormy final movement (C♯ minor), in sonata form and common time, is the weightiest of the three, reflecting an experiment of Beethoven’s, namely, placement of the most important movement of the sonata last. The writing has many fast arpeggios/broken chords, strongly accented notes, and fast alberti bass sequences that fall both into the right and left hands at various times. An effective performance of this movement demands lively and skillful playing, great stamina, and is significantly more demanding technically than the 1st and 2nd movements.
