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  • Essay / Analysis of Ludwig Van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

    Table of ContentsAn overviewBeethovenAnalysis1st movement – ​​Adagio Sostenuto2nd movement – ​​Allegretto3rd movement – ​​Presto AgitatoConclusionReferencesAn overviewThe Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, nicknamed “Moonlight Sonata”, is a piece for solo piano in sonata form, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven. The reason it was nicknamed “Moonlight Sonata” is due to its traces dating back to the 1830s, when the German Romantic poet Ludwig Rellstab published a review of it. It has been said that the first movement of the piece depicted a boat floating in the moonlight on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. It is said to be one of his greatest composed works of art and is particularly admired for its mysterious, gently arpeggiated tone and what is apparently inferred to be an improvised first movement. The play was first completed in 1801 and was published consecutively the following year. It was created by Beethoven himself, whose hearing was still good enough not to be noticed, but which was already deteriorating at the time. Beethoven originally dedicated this work to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, a 16-year-old aristocrat who was briefly his student.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay The Moonlight Sonata was structurally and stylistically extraordinary in its time. Most sonatas composed between the late 17th and 18th centuries consisted of a rationally lively and thematically distinct first movement, a more passive second movement, and finally a lively final movement. Le Clair de Lune, on the other hand, offered a melancholic first movement, a somewhat more energetic second movement and a downright tumultuous final movement. The fury of Moonlight's finale was so deeply moving that several piano strings broke and became tangled in the hammers during the work's premiere. In fact, during the years of his hearing decline, Beethoven was known to play with a heavy hand, probably to hear the music better. BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was born on December 16, 1770 and died on March 26, 1827. He was a German composer/pianist, widely known as one of the greatest musicians in all of musical history. His compositions were able to combine singing and instruments in different ways, giving a new look to the sonata, the concerto, the quartet and the symphony. He is considered the decisive transitional figure who linked the Classical to the Romantic periods in Western music. His personal life was marred by his constant struggle with his increasing deafness and by his sister's struggles in court, often leaving him in despair, as stated in the Heiligenstadt will: "O you men who think or say that I am malicious, stubborn or misanthropic, how much are you wronging me. You don't know the secret cause that makes you appear this way and I would have ended my life - only my art held me back. Ah, it seemed impossible to leave the world until I had brought out everything I felt was within me. » Analysis The length of the piece varies from fifteen to twenty minutes, depending on the tempo at which the piece is played, although the tempo of the piece is said to be at sixty bpm (beats per minute). The structure of the piece is in sonata form and is typical of the genre of the classical era since sonatas generally had three or four movements. However, the uniqueness of this piece from any other is the tempo. Typically, the sonatas ranged from a fast pace to a fast paceslow/lively, then returned to a fast pace. The Moonlight Sonata, on the other hand, moves from a slow tempo to fast/medium, and finally to fast tempo; this corresponded to Beethoven's testament about breaking the rules in the world of music. He seemed to like to leave the significant movement for last, and he did so in other sonatas (Opus 27 No. 1 and Opus 101). The texture of the piece starts out thin and delicate, providing a dreamy feel, progressing to a traditional moderate-sized thickness of the classical minuet and trio, and finally ending with a thick, specifically focused background chord texture. on the notes to impact the tone and tumultuous tempo of the final movement. .1st Movement – ​​Adagio SostenutoThe 1st Movement is the most popular of all the movements present in the composition, and it is the one that people are most familiar with. Overall, the tone is calm and somber, maintained on the piano until the pianissimo, with a few exceptions like crescendos. He never cultivates beyond that, which is entirely reserved for the passionate Beethoven. A quote from Hector Berlioz, who illustrated in a single line the impact of the first movement; “It’s one of those poems that human language cannot describe.” Carl Czerny, Beethoven's piano student, was also in favor, as were many listeners in Beethoven's time. However, this frustrated Beethoven who quoted Czerny: "Surely I have written better things." Throughout the movement we have a relentless rhythmic ostinato with Beethoven's triplet motif trailing flawlessly throughout the movement. This gives off a “rolling” effect; it is visualized as composing a thought over and over again. The triplet patterns in the first movement are arpeggios repeated in a loop, as seen below. The melody of this movement is relatively transitional and thus displays an atmosphere of "small bursts of light rays shining through the black clouds of the lower notes". '. You could say the melody practically sparkles. The first movement is in a bizarre variety of traditional sonata form; it has the first subject, measures one to five, and a second subject, measures fifteen to twenty-three, in the exposition and the development section has been abruptly short, measures twenty-three to forty-two, which is a another reason why it breaks. far from traditional sonatas. Previously, the development section takes up the themes created by the exhibition and occupies the interval by diverting them, but not Beethoven. In comparison, this part is "almost like a short bridge." We have the recapitulation, in which the first theme (measures forty-two to forty-six) and the second theme (measures fifty-one to sixty) are redeemed, with the key of the second theme played in a different key. Finally, we have the coda (end) of measure sixty to sixty-five, closing the movement. “Almost like a fantasy” was the sensation that Beethoven managed to create, which made him feel as if everything was improvised. This meant that he had to avoid many of the ordinary harmonic progressions common in the "rules" of traditional sonata form, thus providing freedom of movement. In the development section, there is a segment where the melody goes down and the notes go up and down. the keyboard. This has a very distinct improvisational feel, almost like a little cadenza.2nd Movement – ​​AllegrettoOf the three movements, this is the one people are generally least familiar with. It's essentially an average minuet and trio, and quite ordinary in a sense, although deliberately so. The first movement had a very strong flavor, and so it had to be kept clear to reset the equally strong flavor of the. 2019].