Moonlight Sonata
A Look into Different Interpretations of the First Movement of Moonlight Sonata: The Piece that Portrays an Assortment of Emotions by Lauren Mora
Music History 70: Beethoven
Section 1G
Ludwig Van Beethoven 's Quasi Una Fantasia, later named and more famously known as The Moonlight Sonata, is a piano piece that can be portrayed and analyzed in a multitude of ways. The piece was published in 1801, during a period of great experimentation in Beethoven 's music. This can help explain how the piece addresses a broad range of emotions that vary from romance to frustration to anger. The first movement is full of all of those feelings and more, however it is the pianist who decides which of them will triumph over the rest. Pianists do so through techniques using musical aspects such as tempo, dynamics, accents, and syncopation to name a few. This paper will discuss four different interpretations of the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata performed by a diverse range of musicians. The musicians include German classical pianist, Wilhelm Kempff, American piano legend, Wladziu Valentine Liberace, contemporary jazz pianist, Lenny Marcus and myself, an amateur pianist. Beethoven originally named this piece, Quasi Una Fantasia, which translates to "almost a fantasy". Fantasy does not mean dream-like in this context, instead it is an improvised piece of music. The idea of the piece being improvised really works with the nature how the first movement functions. This in not only because the movement is not in traditional sonata-allegro procedure but because it is full of chords, arpeggios and runs that are just laying there on the staff waiting to altered through musical techniques using improvisation. When musicians play the Moonlight they have the ability to improvise and mix in their own style and technique to the piece in order to portray specific emotions that leave their audience surprised and hopefully very pleased.
The first interpretation
Music History 70: Beethoven
Section 1G
Ludwig Van Beethoven 's Quasi Una Fantasia, later named and more famously known as The Moonlight Sonata, is a piano piece that can be portrayed and analyzed in a multitude of ways. The piece was published in 1801, during a period of great experimentation in Beethoven 's music. This can help explain how the piece addresses a broad range of emotions that vary from romance to frustration to anger. The first movement is full of all of those feelings and more, however it is the pianist who decides which of them will triumph over the rest. Pianists do so through techniques using musical aspects such as tempo, dynamics, accents, and syncopation to name a few. This paper will discuss four different interpretations of the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata performed by a diverse range of musicians. The musicians include German classical pianist, Wilhelm Kempff, American piano legend, Wladziu Valentine Liberace, contemporary jazz pianist, Lenny Marcus and myself, an amateur pianist. Beethoven originally named this piece, Quasi Una Fantasia, which translates to "almost a fantasy". Fantasy does not mean dream-like in this context, instead it is an improvised piece of music. The idea of the piece being improvised really works with the nature how the first movement functions. This in not only because the movement is not in traditional sonata-allegro procedure but because it is full of chords, arpeggios and runs that are just laying there on the staff waiting to altered through musical techniques using improvisation. When musicians play the Moonlight they have the ability to improvise and mix in their own style and technique to the piece in order to portray specific emotions that leave their audience surprised and hopefully very pleased.
The first interpretation