Your Daily Beethoven for Friday, June 7, 2024
The Opus 27 no. 2 sonata is generally known as the “Moonlight”, so named by a romantic poet (Rellstab) who wrote that the first movement made him think of a boat floating in the moonlight on Lake Lucerne. The reality is otherwise:
it is in fact a solemn funeral dirge. In the sketches for this sonata, Beethoven directly quotes Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, capturing the moment just after the Commendatore is killed, and then transposes the same musical pattern into the C# minor key. The third and longest movement, marked “Presto Agitato” (very fast and agitated), is also far from dreamy – when Beethoven premiered the sonata, he actually broke several of the piano strings!
Here is a masterful performance by Claudio Arrau: https://youtu.be/6XUKtdMRR-M?si=h_JADN7k3k5HHKas
Preview YouTube video Claudio Arrau - Beethoven - Piano Sonata No 14 in C-sharp minor, Op 27, No 2
Claudio Arrau - Beethoven - Piano Sonata No 14 in C-sharp minor, Op 27, No 2
Do you like this post?
-
John Scialdone published this page in Daily Beethoven 2024-06-07 08:31:21 -0400