"Moonlight Sonata". History of creation

At the very end of the 18th century, Ludwig van Beethoven was in his prime, he was incredibly popular, led an active social life, he could rightfully be called the idol of the youth of that time. But one circumstance began to darken the composer's life - the gradually fading hearing. “I am dragging out a bitter existence,” Beethoven wrote to his friend. “I am deaf. With my craft, nothing could be more terrible ... Oh, if I got rid of this disease, I would embrace the whole world. " In 1800, Beethoven met the Guicciardi aristocrats who had traveled from Italy to Vienna. The daughter of a respectable family, sixteen-year-old Juliet, had good musical ability and wished to take piano lessons from the idol of the Viennese aristocracy. Beethoven does not take payment from the young countess, and she, in turn, gives him a dozen shirts, which she made herself. Beethoven was a strict teacher. When he didn’t like Juliet’s play, annoyed, he threw notes on the floor, defiantly turned away from the girl, and she silently collected notebooks from the floor. Juliet was pretty, young, sociable and flirtatious with her 30-year-old teacher. And Beethoven succumbed to her charm. “Now I am more often in society, and therefore my life has become more fun,” he wrote to Franz Wegeler in November 1800. - This change was made in me by a sweet, charming girl who loves me and whom I love. I have bright moments again, and I come to the conviction that marriage can make a person happy. " Beethoven thought about marriage, despite the fact that the girl belonged to an aristocratic family. But the composer in love consoled himself with the fact that he would give concerts, achieve independence, and then marriage would become possible. He spent the summer of 1801 in Hungary at the estate of the Hungarian counts of Brunswick, relatives of Juliet's mother, in Korompe. The summer spent with his beloved was the happiest time for Beethoven. At the height of his senses, the composer set about creating a new sonata. The gazebo, in which, according to legend, Beethoven composed magic music, has survived to this day. In the homeland of the work, in Austria, it is known under the name "Sonata of the Garden House" or "Sonata - Gazebo". The sonata started in the state great love, delight and hope. Beethoven was sure that Juliet had the most tender feelings for him. Many years later, in 1823, Beethoven, then already deaf and communicating with the help of conversational notebooks, while talking with Schindler, wrote: "I was very much loved by her and more than ever, was her husband ..." In the winter of 1801 - 1802 Beethoven completes his new composition. And in March 1802 Sonata No. 14, which the composer called quasi una Fantasia, that is, "in the spirit of fantasy," was published in Bonn with the dedication "Alla Damigella Contessa Giullietta Guicciardri" ("Dedicated to Countess Juliet Guicciardi"). The composer was finishing his masterpiece in anger, rage and strong resentment: the windy coquette from the first months of 1802 showed a clear preference for the eighteen-year-old Count Robert von Gallenberg, who was also fond of music and composed very mediocre musical opuses. However, Juliet Gallenberg seemed brilliant. The whole storm of human emotions that was in Beethoven's soul at that time is conveyed by the composer in his sonata. These are grief, doubt, jealousy, doom, passion, hope, longing, tenderness and, of course, love. Beethoven and Juliet broke up. And even later, the composer received a letter. It ended with cruel words: “I am leaving a genius who has already won, to a genius who is still fighting for recognition. I want to be his guardian angel. " It was a "double blow" - as a man and as a musician. In 1803, Juliet Guicciardi married Gallenberg and left for Italy. In emotional turmoil in October 1802, Beethoven left Vienna and went to Heiligenstadt, where he wrote the famous "Heiligenstadt Testament" (October 6, 1802): they are unfair to me; you do not know the secret reason for what seems to you. Since childhood, with my heart and mind, I have been predisposed to a gentle feeling of kindness, I was always ready to accomplish great things. But just think that for six years now I have been in an ill-fated state ... I am completely deaf ... ”Fear, the collapse of hopes give rise to thoughts of suicide in the composer. But Beethoven pulled himself together, decided to start new life and in almost absolute deafness he created great masterpieces. In 1821, Juliet returned to Austria and came to Beethoven's apartment. Crying, she recalled the wonderful time when the composer was her teacher, talked about poverty and the difficulties of her family, asked to forgive her and help with money. Being a kind and noble person, the maestro gave her a significant amount, but asked to leave and never appear in his house. Beethoven seemed indifferent and indifferent. But who knows what was happening in his heart, tormented by numerous disappointments. “I despised her,” Beethoven recalled much later. “After all, if I wanted to give my life to this love, what would be left for the noble, for the higher?” In the fall of 1826, Beethoven fell ill. Exhausting treatment, three complicated operations could not put the composer on his feet. Throughout the winter, without getting out of bed, he was absolutely deaf, tormented by the fact that ... he could not continue to work. On March 26, 1827, the great music genius Ludwig van Beethoven passed away. After his death, in the secret drawer of the wardrobe, they found a letter "To the immortal beloved" (as Beethoven himself titled the letter): "My angel, my everything, my me ... Why is there deep sadness where necessity reigns? Can our love withstand only at the cost of sacrifices through the refusal of completeness, can you not change the position in which you are not entirely mine and I am not entirely yours? What a life! Without you! So close! So far! What longing and tears for you - for you - for you, my life, my everything ... ”Many will then argue about who exactly the message is addressed to. But a small fact points exactly to Juliet Guicciardi: next to the letter was kept a tiny portrait of Beethoven's beloved, made by an unknown master, and the Heiligenstadt Testament. Anyway, it was Juliet who inspired Beethoven to write an immortal masterpiece. “The monument to love, which he wanted to create with this sonata, very naturally turned into a mausoleum. For such a person as Beethoven, love could not be anything other than hope beyond the grave and sorrow, spiritual mourning here on earth ”(Alexander Serov, composer and music critic). The "in the spirit of fantasy" sonata was initially simply Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, which consisted of three movements - Adagio, Allegro and Finale. In 1832, the German poet Ludwig Rellstab, one of Beethoven's friends, saw in the first part of the work an image of Lake Lucerne on a quiet night, with moonlight reflecting from the surface. He suggested the name "Lunar". Years will pass, and the first measured part of the work: "Adagio Sonata N 14 quasi una fantasia" - will become known to the whole world under the name "Moonlight Sonata".

The girl won the heart of the young composer and then brutally broke it. But it is to Juliet that we owe the fact that we can listen to the music of the best sonata of the brilliant composer so deeply penetrating into the soul.

The full title of the sonata is Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, op. 27, No. 2 ". The first movement of the sonata is called "Moonlight"; this name was not given by Beethoven himself. The German music critic, poet and friend of Beethoven, Ludwig Rellstab, compared the first movement of the sonata with "moonlight over Lake Lucerne" after the author's death. This "nickname" turned out to be so successful that it instantly became firmly established all over the world, and to this day most people believe that "Moonlight Sonata" is the real name.

The sonata has another name, "Sonata - Gazebo" or "Sonata of the Garden House". According to one version, Beethoven began painting it in the gazebo of the Brunvik aristocratic park, in Korompe.

The music of the sonata seems simple, laconic, clear, natural, while it is full of sensuality and goes “from heart to heart” (these are the words of Beethoven himself). Love, betrayal, hope, suffering, everything is reflected in the "Moonlight Sonata". But one of the main ideas is a person's ability to overcome difficulties, the ability to rebirth, this is the main theme of all the music of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was born in the German city of Bonn. The years of childhood can be called the most difficult in the life of the future composer. It was difficult for a proud and independent boy to experience the fact that his father, a rude and oppressive man, noticing his son's musical talent, decided to use him for personal gain. Forcing little Ludwig to sit at the harpsichord from morning till night, he did not think that his son needed childhood so much. At the age of eight, Beethoven earned his first money - he gave a public concert, and by the age of twelve, the boy freely played the violin and organ. Along with success, the young musician came to withdrawal, the need for loneliness and lack of communication. At the same time, Nefe, his wise and kind mentor, appeared in the life of the future composer. It was he who instilled in the boy a sense of beauty, taught him to understand nature, art, and understand human life. Nefe taught Ludwig ancient languages, philosophy, literature, history, ethics. Subsequently, being a deeply and broad-minded person, Beethoven became an adherent of the principles of freedom, humanism, equality of all people.

In 1787 the young Beethoven left Bonn and went to Vienna.
Beautiful Vienna - the city of theaters and cathedrals, street bands and love serenades under the windows - won the heart of the young genius.

But it was there that the young musician was struck by deafness: at first the sounds seemed muffled to him, then he repeated the phrases he had not heard several times, then he realized that he was completely losing his hearing. “I am dragging out a bitter existence,” Beethoven wrote to his friend. - I'm deaf. With my craft, nothing could be more terrible ... Oh, if I got rid of this disease, I would embrace the whole world. "

But the horror of progressive deafness was replaced by happiness from a meeting with a young aristocrat, Italian by birth, Juliet Guicciardi (1784-1856). Juliet, daughter of the wealthy and distinguished Count Guicciardi, came to Vienna in 1800. Then she was not even seventeen, but the love of life and charm of the young girl conquered the thirty-year-old composer, and he immediately confessed to his friends that he had fallen in love passionately and passionately. He was sure that the same tender feelings had arisen in the heart of the mocking coquette. In a letter to his friend, Beethoven emphasized: "This wonderful girl is so much loved by me and loves me that I observe an amazing change in myself precisely because of her."

Juliet Guicciardi (1784-1856)
A few months after the first meeting, Beethoven invited Juliet to take some free piano lessons from him. She gladly accepted this offer, and in return for such a generous gift presented her teacher with several shirts embroidered by her. Beethoven was a strict teacher. When he didn’t like Juliet’s play, annoyed, he threw notes on the floor, defiantly turned away from the girl, and she silently collected notebooks from the floor. Six months later, at the height of his senses, Beethoven began to create a new sonata, which after his death would be called "Moonlight". It is dedicated to Countess Guicciardi and was started in a state of great love, delight and hope.

In emotional turmoil in October 1802, Beethoven left Vienna and went to Heiligenstadt, where he wrote the famous "Heiligenstadt Testament": “Oh, you people who think that I am spiteful, stubborn, ill-mannered - how unfair you are to me; you do not know the secret reason for what seems to you. Since childhood, with my heart and mind, I have been predisposed to a gentle feeling of kindness, I was always ready to accomplish great things. But just think that for six years now I have been in an ill-fated state ... I am completely deaf ... "
Fear and frustration give rise to suicidal thoughts in the composer. But Beethoven rallied his strength and decided to start a new life and, in almost absolute deafness, created great masterpieces.

Several years passed, and Juliet returned to Austria and came to Beethoven's apartment. Crying, she recalled the wonderful time when the composer was her teacher, talked about poverty and the difficulties of her family, asked to forgive her and help with money. Being a kind and noble person, the maestro gave her a significant amount, but asked to leave and never appear in his house. Beethoven seemed indifferent and indifferent. But who knows what was happening in his heart, tormented by numerous disappointments. At the end of his life, the composer writes: "I was very much loved by her and more than ever, was her husband ..."

Brunswick sisters Teresa (2) and Josephine (3)

Trying to erase his beloved from the memory forever, the composer met with other women. Once, seeing the beautiful Josephine Brunswick, he immediately confessed his love to her, but in return received only a polite but unequivocal refusal. Then, in despair, Beethoven proposed to Josephine's older sister, Teresa. But she did the same, coming up with a beautiful fairy tale about the impossibility of meeting with the composer.

The genius more than once recalled how women humiliated him. Once a young singer from a Viennese theater, when asked to meet with her, answered with a sneer that “the composer is so ugly in appearance and besides, it seems too strange to her ”that she does not intend to meet with him. Ludwig van Beethoven did not really care about his appearance, he often remained unkempt. It was unlikely that he could be called independent in everyday life, he needed the constant care of a woman. When Juliet Guicciardi, while still a student of the maestro, and noticing that Beethoven's silk bow was not tied so well, tied it up and kissed it on the forehead, the composer did not take off this bow and did not change for several weeks until friends hinted at a not quite fresh look of it suit.

Too sincere and open, contemptuous of hypocrisy and servility, Beethoven often seemed rude and ill-mannered. Often he expressed himself obscenely, which is why many considered him a plebeian and ignorant boor, although the composer was simply telling the truth.

In the fall of 1826, Beethoven fell ill. Exhausting treatment, three complicated operations could not put the composer on his feet. Throughout the winter, without getting out of bed, he was absolutely deaf, tormented by the fact that ... he could not continue to work.
Last years the composer's lives are even more difficult than the first ones. He is completely deaf, he is haunted by loneliness, illness, poverty. Family life did not work out. He gives all his unspent love to his nephew, who could replace his son, but grew up to be a deceitful, two-faced bum and a bummer who shortened Beethoven's life.
The composer died from a serious, painful illness on March 26, 1827.

Beethoven's grave in Vienna
After his death, a letter “To the immortal beloved” was found in a drawer of his writing desk (This is how Beethoven titled the letter himself (A.R. Sardaryan): “My angel, my everything, my me ... Why is there deep sorrow where necessity reigns? love can resist only at the cost of sacrifices by giving up fullness, can't you change the position in which you are not entirely mine and I am not entirely yours? What a life! Without you! So close! So far away! What longing and tears for you - you - you, my life, my everything ... ".

Many will then argue about who exactly the message is addressed to. But a small fact points exactly to Juliet Guicciardi: next to the letter was kept a tiny portrait of Beethoven's beloved, made by an unknown master

Ludwig van Beethoven. Moonlight Sonata. Sonata of love or ...

Sonata cis-moll(Op. 27 No. 2) - one of Beethoven's most popular piano sonatas; perhaps the world's most famous piano sonata and favorite piece for home music making. For more than two centuries it has been learned, played, softened, tamed - as in all centuries people have tried to soften and tame death.

Boat on the waves

The name "Lunar" does not belong to Beethoven - it was introduced into circulation after the death of the composer Heinrich Friedrich Ludwig Rellstab (1799-1860), a German music critic, poet and librettist, who left a number of notes in the master's spoken notebooks. Rellstab compared the images of the first movement of the sonata with the movement of a boat sailing under the moon along Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

Ludwig van Beethoven. Portrait, painted in the second half of the 19th century

Ludwig Röllshtab
(1799 - 1860)
German novelist, playwright and music critic

K. Friedrich. Monastic cemetery in the snow (1819)
National Gallery, Berlin

Switzerland. Lake Lucerne

Have different works Beethoven, there are many names that are understandable, as a rule, only in one country. But the adjective "lunar" in relation to this sonata has become international. The lightweight salon name touched the depths of the image from which the music grew. Beethoven himself, inclined to give parts of his works a little ponderous definitions in Italian, named two of his sonatas - op. 27 No. 1 and 2 - quasi una fantasia- "something like a fantasy."

Legend

The romantic tradition connects the emergence of the sonata with another love interest of the composer - his student, young Juliet Guicciardi (1784-1856), cousins ​​of Teresa and Josephine Brunswick, two sisters with whom the composer was in turn different periods his life (Beethoven, like Mozart, had a tendency to fall in love with entire families).

Juliet Guicciardi

Teresa Brunswick. Loyal friend and student of Beethoven

Dorothea Ertman
German pianist, one of the best performers of Beethoven's works
Ertman was famous for her performance of Beethoven's works. The composer dedicated Sonata No. 28 to her

The romantic legend includes four points: the passion of Beethoven, the playing of the sonata in the moonlight, the marriage proposal rejected by heartless parents due to class prejudices, and, finally, the marriage of a frivolous wreath, which preferred the great composer to a wealthy young aristocrat.

Alas, there is nothing to confirm that Beethoven ever proposed to his pupil (as he, with a high degree of probability, did it later to Teresa Malfatti, the cousin of his attending physician). There is not even evidence that Beethoven was seriously in love with Juliet. He did not tell anyone about his feelings (as, incidentally, he did not talk about his other loves). The portrait of Juliet Guicciardi was found after the death of the composer in a locked box along with other valuable documents - but ... in a secret drawer there were several female portraits.

And finally, married Count Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg, an elderly ballet composer and archivist musical theater, Juliet came out only a couple of years after the creation of Op. 27 No. 2 - in 1803.

Whether the girl who was once fascinated by Beethoven was happy in marriage is another question. Already before his death, the deaf composer wrote in one of his conversational notebooks that some time ago Juliet wanted to meet with him, even “cried,” but he refused her.

Caspar David Friedrich. Woman and sunset (Sunset, sunrise, woman in the morning sun)

Beethoven did not alienate the women with whom he was once in love, he even wrote to them ...

The first page of a letter to the "immortal lover"

Perhaps in 1801 the hot-tempered composer quarreled with his student over some trifle (as happened, for example, with the violinist Bridgetauer, performer of the Kreutzer Sonata), and even many years later he was ashamed to remember this.

Secrets of the Heart

If in 1801 Beethoven suffered, it was not at all from unhappy love. At this time, he first informed his friends that he had been struggling with impending deafness for three years. On June 1, 1801, a desperate letter was received by his friend, violinist and theologian Karl Amenda (1771-1836) (5) , to which Beethoven dedicated his wonderful string quartet, Op. 18 in F major. On June 29, Beethoven informed another friend of his illness, Franz Gerhard Wegeler: “For two years now I have almost avoided any society, because I cannot tell people:“ I am deaf! ”.

Church in the village of Geiligenstadt

In 1802, in Heiligenstadt (a resort suburb of Vienna), he wrote his amazing testament: "Oh you people who consider or declare me embittered, stubborn or misanthrope, how unfair you are to me" - this is how this famous document begins.

The image of the "Moonlight" sonata grew through heavy thoughts and sad thoughts.

The moon in the romantic poetry of Beethoven's time is an ominous, gloomy luminary. Only decades later, her image in salon poetry acquired elegiacity and began to "brighten". The epithet "lunar" in relation to piece of music late XVIII - early XIX v. can mean irrationality, cruelty and gloom.

As beautiful as the legend of unhappy love is, it is hard to believe that Beethoven could have dedicated such a sonata to his girlfriend.

For the Moonlight Sonata is a sonata about death.

Key

The key to the mysterious triplets of the Moonlight Sonata, which opens the first movement, was discovered by Theodore Vizeva and Georges de Saint-Foix in their famous work on the music of Mozart. These triplets, which today every child admitted to the parent's piano tries with enthusiasm to play, go back to the immortal image created by Mozart in his opera Don Giovanni (1787). Mozart's masterpiece, which Beethoven resented and admired, begins with mindless murder in the darkness of the night. In the silence that followed the explosion in the orchestra, on the quiet and deep triplets of strings, three voices emerge one after the other: the trembling voice of a dying man, the broken voice of his murderer, and the muttering of a numb servant.

With this detached triplet movement, Mozart created the effect of life flowing away, floating away into darkness, when the body was already numb, and Leta's measured waving carries away the dying consciousness on its waves.

In Mozart's monotonous accompaniment of strings, a chromatic mourning melody of wind instruments and male voices singing, albeit intermittently, are superimposed.

In Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, what was supposed to be an accompaniment drowned out and dissolved in itself the melody - the voice of individuality. The upper voice floating above them (the coherent performance of which is sometimes the main difficulty for the performer) is almost no melody anymore. This is the illusion of a melody that can be grasped as the last hope.

On the verge of goodbye

In the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven transposes the Mozart triplets of death that have sunk into his memory a half step lower - into a more reverent and romantic C sharp minor. This will be an important key for him - in it he will write his last and great quartet cis-moll.

The endless triads of the Moonlight Sonata, flowing into one another, have neither end nor beginning. Beethoven reproduced with amazing accuracy the feeling of melancholy evoked by the endless play of scales and triads behind the wall - sounds that, by their endless repetition, are capable of taking music away from a person. But Beethoven traces all this boring nonsense to a generalization of the cosmic order. Before us is pure musical fabric.

By the beginning of the twentieth century. and other arts approached the level of this discovery of Beethoven: for example, the artists made the hero of their canvases pure color.

What the composer does in his work of 1801 is strikingly consonant with the search of the late Beethoven, with his last sonatas, in which, according to Thomas Mann, “the sonata itself as a genre ends, is brought to an end: it fulfilled its purpose, reached its goal , there is no further way, and it dissolves, overcomes itself as a form, says goodbye to the world. "

“Death is nothing,” Beethoven himself said, “you live only in the most beautiful moments. That which is genuine that really exists in a person, that which is inherent in him, is eternal. The transitory is worthless. Life acquires beauty and significance only thanks to fantasy, this flower, which only there, in the sky-high heights, blooms magnificently ... "

The second movement of the Moonlight Sonata, which Franz Liszt called “a fragrant flower that grew between two abysses — an abyss of sorrow and an abyss of despair,” is a flirty allegretto that looks like a light interlude. The third part was compared by the composer's contemporaries, accustomed to thinking in images of romantic painting, to a night storm on a lake. Four waves of sound, one after another, soar upward, each ending with two sharp blows, as if the waves hit a rock.

The musical form itself breaks out, tries to break the framework of the old form, throw it over the edge - but it retreats.

The time has not come yet.

Text: Svetlana Kirillova, Art magazine

L. Beethoven "Moonlight Sonata"

Today there is hardly a person who has never heard the "Moonlight Sonata" Ludwig van Beethoven , because this is one of the most famous and beloved works in the history of musical culture. Such a beautiful and poetic name was given to the work by the music critic Ludwig Relstab after the death of the composer. To be more precise, not the entire work, but only its first part.

History of creation Moonlight Sonata Beethoven, the content of the work and many interesting facts read on our page.

History of creation

If about another most popular work of Beethoven bagatelle difficulties arise, when trying to find out exactly who it was dedicated to, then everything is extremely simple. The Piano Sonata No.14 in C sharp minor, written in 1800-1801, was dedicated to Juliet Guicciardi. The maestro was in love with her and dreamed of getting married.

It is worth noting that during this period the composer began to increasingly feel a deterioration in his hearing, but he was still popular in Vienna and continued to give lessons in aristocratic circles. For the first time about this girl, his student, "who loves me and is loved by me," he wrote in November 1801 to Franz Wegeler. The 17-year-old Countess Juliet Guicciardi and met in late 1800. Beethoven taught her musical art, and did not even take money for it. In gratitude, the girl sewed his shirts. It seemed that happiness awaits them, because their feelings are mutual. However, Beethoven's plans were not destined to come true: the young countess preferred him a more noble person, the composer Wenzel Gallenberg.

The loss of a beloved woman, increasing deafness, collapsed creative plans - all this fell on the unfortunate Beethoven. And the sonata, which the composer began to write in an atmosphere of inspiring happiness and quivering hope, ended in anger and rage.

It is known that it was in 1802 that the composer wrote that very "Heiligenstadt testament". In this document, desperate thoughts of impending deafness and unrequited, deceived love merged together.

Surprisingly, the name "Moonlight" was firmly entrenched in the sonata thanks to the Berlin poet, who compared the first part of the work with the beautiful landscape of Lake Lucerne in moonlit night... Curiously, many composers and music critics opposed such a name. A. Rubinstein noted that the first part of the sonata is deeply tragic and most likely it shows the sky with thick clouds, but not the moonlight, which, in theory, should express dreams and tenderness. Only the second part of the work can be called a moonlight with a stretch. Critic Alexander Maykapar said that the sonata does not contain the same "moonlight" that Rellshtab spoke about. Moreover, he agreed with the statement of Hector Berlioz that the first part is more reminiscent of a "sunny day" than a night. Despite the protests of critics, it was this name that was assigned to the work.

The composer himself gave his work the name "sonata in the spirit of fantasy." This is due to the fact that the usual form for this work was violated and the parts changed their sequence. Instead of the usual "fast-slow-fast", the sonata develops from a slow movement to a more mobile one.

Interesting Facts

• It is known that only two titles of Beethoven's sonatas belong to the composer himself - these are “ Pathetic "And" Farewell ".
• The author himself noted that the first part of "Lunar" requires the most delicate performance from the musician.
• The second movement of the sonata is usually compared with the dances of the elves from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• All three parts of the sonata are united by the finest motive work: the second motive main theme from the first part sounds in the first theme of the second part. In addition, many expressive elements from the first part were reflected and developed in the third.
• It is curious that there are many variants of the plot interpretation of the sonata. It was the image of Relshtab that received the greatest popularity.
• In addition, an American jewelry company has released a stunning natural pearl necklace called the Moonlight Sonata. How do you like coffee with such a poetic name? It is offered to its visitors by a well-known foreign company. And finally, even animals are sometimes given such nicknames. Thus, a stallion bred in America received such an unusual and beautiful nickname as "Moonlight Sonata".

• Some researchers of his work believe that in this work Beethoven anticipated the later work of romantic composers and call the sonata the first nocturne.
• Famous composer Franz Liszt called the second movement of the sonata "A Flower in the Abyss". Indeed, some listeners think that the introduction is very similar to a barely opened bud, while the second part is the flowering itself.
• The name "Moonlight Sonata" was so popular that it was sometimes applied to things completely far from music. For example, this phrase, which is familiar and familiar to every musician, was the code for the 1945 air raid on Coventry (England) by the German invaders.

In the "Moonlight" Sonata, all the features of composition and drama depend on the poetic design. In the center of the work is a spiritual drama, under the influence of which the mood changes from mournful self-absorption, constrained by sadness of reflection to violent activity. It was in the finale that the very open conflict arises, in fact, in order to show it, it was necessary to rearrange the parts in places in order to enhance the effect and drama.

First part- lyrical, it is completely focused on the feelings and thoughts of the composer. Researchers note that the manner in which Beethoven reveals this tragic image brings this part of the sonata closer to Bach's choral preludes. Listen to the first part, what image did Beethoven want to convey to the public? Of course, the lyrics, but they are not light, but slightly overshadowed by sorrow. Maybe these are the composer's thoughts about his unfulfilled feelings? Listeners, as if for a moment, plunge into the dream world of another person.

The first part is presented in a prelude-improvisational manner. It is noteworthy that in this whole part, only one image dominates, but such a strong and laconic one that does not require any explanations, only concentration on oneself. The main melody can be called acutely expressive. It may seem that it is quite simple, but it is not. The melody is complex in terms of intonation. It is noteworthy that this version of the first part is very different from all its other first parts, since there are no sharp contrasts, transitions, only a calm and unhurried flow of thought.

However, let us return to the image of the first part, its mournful detachment is only a temporary state. Incredibly intense harmonic movement, the renewal of the melody itself speaks of an active inner life... How long can Beethoven be in a state of grief and reminiscing? The rebellious spirit must still make itself felt and throw out all the raging feelings out.

The next part is rather small and is built on light intonations, as well as the play of light and shadow. What is hidden behind this music? Perhaps the composer wanted to talk about the changes that took place in his life thanks to his acquaintance with a beautiful girl. Without a doubt, during this period - true love, sincere and light, the composer was happy. But this happiness did not last long at all, because the second part of the sonata is perceived as a small respite in order to enhance the effect of the finale, which burst in with all its storm of feelings. It is in this part that emotions are incredibly high. It is noteworthy that the thematic material of the finale is indirectly connected with the first part. What emotions does this music recall? Of course, there is no longer any suffering and sorrow. It is an outburst of anger that covers up all other emotions and feelings. Only at the very end, in the code, the entire experienced drama is pushed back into the depths by an incredible effort of will. And this is already very similar to Beethoven himself. In a swift, passionate impulse, menacing, mournful, agitated intonations sweep through. The whole range of emotions human soul who has experienced such a heavy shock. It is safe to say that a real drama unfolds in front of the audience.

Interpretations

Throughout its existence, the sonata has always evoked constant delight not only among listeners, but also among performers. She was highly regarded by such famous musicians as Chopin , Sheet, Berlioz ... Many music critics describe the sonata as "one of the most inspiring", possessing "the rarest and most beautiful of the privileges - to please the initiated and the layman." It is not surprising that over the entire period of its existence, a lot of interpretations and unusual performances have appeared.

So, famous guitarist Marcel Robinson created an arrangement for guitar. The arrangement was very popular Glenn Miller for jazz orchestra.

"Moonlight Sonata" modernized by Glenn Miller (listen)

Moreover, Sonata 14 entered the Russian fiction thanks to Leo Tolstoy ("Family Happiness"). Such famous critics as Stasov and Serov were engaged in its study. Romain Rolland also dedicated many inspired sayings to her while studying Beethoven's work. How do you like the display of the sonata in sculpture? This also became possible thanks to the work of Paul Bloch, who presented his marble sculpture of the same name in 1995. In painting, the work is also reflected, thanks to the work of Ralph Harris Houston and his painting "Moonlight Sonata".

The final " Moonlight Sonatas"- the raging ocean of emotions in the soul of the composer - we will listen. To begin with - the original sound of the work performed by the German pianist Wilhelm Kempf. Just look at how the wounded pride and impotent rage of Beethoven are embodied in passages soaring rapidly up the piano keyboard ...

Video: listen to the "Moonlight Sonata"

Now for a minute, imagine if you lived in our days, and chose another to recreate these emotions musical instrument... Which one, you ask? The one who today is the leader in the embodiment of emotionally heavy, overflowing with emotions and seething passions of music - the electric guitar. After all, no other instrument so vividly and accurately depicts a rapid hurricane, sweeping away all feelings and memories on its way. What would come of it - see for yourself.

Modern guitar processing

Without a doubt, "" Beethoven is one of the most popular works of the composer. Moreover, it is one of the brightest works of all world music. All three parts of this work are an inextricable feeling that grows up to the most real formidable storm. The heroes of this drama, as well as their feelings are alive to this day, thanks to this wonderful music and immortal work art created by one of the greatest composers.