Moonlight sonata analysis

Analysis of ‘Moonlight Sonata’ by Ludwig van Beethoven

Sonata quasi una fantasia, Piano sonata No.14 in C# minor Op. 27, N.2

Ludwig van Beethoven was a pianist and a composer who was born in Bonn, Germany year and died in Vienna, Austria (1770-1827). He was taught piano and violin from a very young age from his father. As a teenager he was sent to Vienna for unknown reasons but there he shortly studied with Mozart. After the death of his parents he became a permanent resident in Vienna. There he established himself as a composer. Although at this point already starting to lose his hearing and he actually composed his most important works during the last ten years of his life, when he was mostly deaf. Some of the most famous pieces of Beethoven are; Adelaide, Op. 46, Pathetique Sonata, No. 8 Op. 30, Eroica Symphony (Third) Op. 55, Fifth Symphony, Op. 67 and the piece being analysed moonlight sonata. 

This piece that has become one of the most well know pieces of classical music since the about 200 years ago when it was written got its name ‘Moonlight sonata’ from a music critique Ludwig Rellstab because of its eerie presence after Beethoven had died.  It is said that Beethoven was inspired to write it while visiting Lake Balaton located in Hungary. Although it is a sonata it does not follow the traditional form of a classical period sonata. Instead of this fast-slow-fast-fast layout it progresses towards a fast tempo over the span of all the three movements. Starting from the first movement ‘Adagio sostenuto’ which means ‘sustained in slow time’, to ‘Allegretto’ meaning ‘fairly quickly’ and to the third and final movement of the piece ‘Presto agitato’ roughly meaning ‘quick agitation’ As per usual for sonatas the first movement is the most well known and most played, there are ten times the amount of recordings on it than there is of the whole piece. Moonlight sonata is one of the main pieces that marks the transitional period between the classical and romantic era in which Beethoven as a composer was predominant figure.

1^st movement – Adagio sostenuto

The beginning movement of this sonata is played in C# minor and is in fact common time and two beats to the bar. It appears to be four to the bar because of the triplet subvision in the right-hand which persist as an ostinato throughout. The movement is traditionally performed slowly although when you take in to consideration the adagio instruction and apply it to two instead of four beats to the bar its effects are far from adagio. The first four bars are the introduction. It has a descending bass-line that characterises it. Beethoven has borrowed this bass-line from Albinonis’ Adagio. After this starts the entreating polyrhythmic motif that makes up the main theme; the one that everyone can recognise. These four beats of polyrhythm and perpetual triplets are borrowed from Mozart, much like many other aspects of this piece. This particular feature is from The Commendatore’s death scene in Don Giovanni.  Other obvious feature that Beethoven couldn’t help but copy from Mozart is the tonic major-to-minor progression that initiate the modulation to the second subject. This was used by Mozart 25 years earlier in Sonata n.4 in E major. This first movement includes one of the most discussed and argued notation. There is a fair amount of disagreement in the matter of the 12^th bar’s second triplet group. Players are disagreeing whether to play c or a b. Though there is a dispute on this there is a clear answer to this. It is to be played as c. The simple reason for this is the counterpoint rule of the classical era. It states that two separate voices mustn’t move in parallel octaves or fifths unless other one is doubling. Because the bass line is already doubled, the triplet cannot double it so it is c. This first movement is the one that follows the guidelines of classical sonata the most, but it still holds a couple of quirks. Its unusual tonal progression is not common in classical period sonatas and this is most likely the reason why Beethoven called the piece ‘Sonata quasi una fantasia’. Fantasia often meaning that the piece is of free form. Also in the exposition the second subject isn’t dominant as it should be in classical form. It is in B minor, which isn’t even a parallel key. The movement ends with the main motif gets darker and forth telling of dimness ahead as it moves in to left-hand ground.

2^nd Movement –Allegretto  

This movement differs from the other two quite drastically. It is cheery and light-hearted. It creates a break in the intenseness of the other two movements, it’s like the eye of the storm where the storm is behind and ahead, yet it is sunny and bright. Allegretto is played in D flat major, which is the more easily notated enharmonic equivalent to C# major; the parallel major of the first movement’s C# minor. Even with the slight majority of movement in piano frequent sforzandos and forte-pianos keep the melody cheerful. This light-hearted classical harmony’s main motif isn’t really much of a melody and is repeated 20 times in the course of two minutes. The trio on par with the allegretto and the two repeats of two eight-bar sequences bring some contrast to this part and after this is the obvious allegretto repeated da capo after the trio. This movement is the shortest of them all with a bar count of only 60 bars and duration of two minutes.

3^rd Movement –Presto agitato

The third and final movement of this sonata is a fierce and stormy piece in C# minor. It is the weightiest of all of the movements and a part of Beethoven’s experiment in locating the most important movement last. It’s heavy and fiery feel is created by many fast arpeggios and strongly accented notes. Presto agitato starts off with the same notes as the 1^st movement with an added agitato instruction. After this it modifies the three note motif in a way that the rhythmic pattern with the second note on the weakest beat keeps the initial core harmonic structure the same. This is repeated six times. The theme continuous until there’s a Neapolitan flattened supertonic; this is from the 3^rd bar of the 1^st movement. After this it continues until it meets it again but an octave lower this time around. Shortly after this finally the melody meets another theme which leads it to the closing subject. In this the exposition is repeated as expected but the development and recapitulation are not. The development kicks off with first subject arpeggios in tonic major but shortly turns into the cantable theme from the 2^nd subject which repositions into the left hand, there jumping up and down until meeting the long dominant pedal point that is predicting the reprise, much like in the 1^st movement but without the diminished seventh chord. The reprise basically duplicates the whole of the exposition excluding standard key changes and minor alterations. After this we finally get to the final ascent that has not one but two climax points one after another. The start of this ascent creates an illusion of entering another development section. This shows us why only exposition was repeated. The whole second part is twice as long as the exposition and also the climax wouldn’t work a second time. The first climax is based on the first subject as expected while the second climax is more elaborate and emotive. It develops on the second subject motif before rolling into triplet arpeggios. The ultimate climax is a quick pace intricate ‘mess’. Up and down several times up through a chromatic scale, trill, descending again in an almost improvisation figuration and after that we come to a grinding halt, then adagio. Tempo I piu tranquillo, piano. Then a pedal point returns for six bars, pianissimo. Then presto, forte. A final descend to the arpeggio, sforzando descend and two blast, fortissimo, senza pedale. This might be the darkness and blackness the 1^st movement’s ending predicted.

The moonlight sonata is as a whole a piece that with the first look seems simple and straight forward, yet when looked at more closely it has a lot of small but important and revolutionary features in it. It is most definitely important piece of music in the transition to romantic from classical period.