Sonata No. 14 in sharo minor- music analysis

Sonata No.14 in C sharp minor by L. van Beethoven

1^st movement: Adagio sostenuto

This piece that has gotten the nickname ‘moonlight sonata’ because of its eeriness is a revolutionary piece of music taking classical music from classical to romantic period. First directions of this piece are given that one should play this whole piece with great delicacy and sustain pedal throughout the whole of first movement.  Beethoven is deliberately trying to convey a dark and a sad feeling in this piece. This differs from Mozart who composed music for dancing and entertainment. Mozart doesn’t give nearly as much directions for the player as Beethoven does, leaving the interpretation open, this might be because unlike Mozart, Beethoven is capture a specific moment and feeling. Beethoven uses the pedal points in this first movement to create a sense of depression and sorrow. The piece is in C sharp minor and has a time signature of 2/2, which is an uncommon time for a first movement of a sonata. Like in the Mozart, the first movement is in Adagio which again uncommon since the norm for sonata form is to have an allegro to begin and after that go into a slower, but Beethoven is exploring the limits of sonata form in starting slowly and then in second movement picking the tempo up.

Exposition starts from the beginning and lasts until bar 23 which is longer than in the Mozart. Unlike in the Mozart this piece has an intro; bars 1 to 5. In the right hand you have broken chord triplet figurations while the left hand is playing the accompanying descending bass line in octaves. In bar 4 of the intro there is suspension throughout the bar and it ends in a perfect cadence and a dominant 7^th chord. Bar 5 works as a bridge between the intro and the principal theme, starting the dotted rhythm that continuous to theme. The key is changed to E major and the bar ends in an anacrusis. Theme A begins in a fanfare like motif and an inverted pedal note. This theme is carried out to the end of this movement. This simple motif is played for 5 bars and in bar 11 there is a bridge passage and after that there is a modulation to c major. Theme B of the exposition starts in bar 15, lasting 9 bars. Bars 16 has dissonance that gets resolute by the diminished chord the first beat of bar 17.

Development of this movement starts at bar 24 and is modulated into F sharp minor. It starts with repetition of the first four bars of theme A. After this in bar 28 it goes to refer to the left hand part of bar 16. Also a pedal point is established that lasts to bar 39. In bars 27 to 31 there is imitation down the octave between the bars. The bars are played in different voices changing from tenor voice to soprano. In bar 32 the accompaniment changes into triplets making the bass less static than before this and the right hand changes from the reliving of the theme to ascending broken chords. There is a dissonance here that gets resoluted in bar 33. This bar ends in a diminished chord. In bar 36 the theme refers back to the bass line of bars 16 to 19 and the left hand uses octaves and the pedal point to create a growing tension. This tension is broken two bars later in bar number 38. The Development comes to an end in an anacrusis at bar 42.

Recap starts off with 3 bars of repletion of theme A. After this the piece modulates to E major giving the recap it’s more hopeful and cheery feeling. Where the rest of the movement is written by Beethoven to be a musical representation of sadness and the different states of melancholy, the recap is an anticipative part where there is hope that you can get through sadness.