What Is The Mood Of Moonlight By Beethoven

Beethoven Moonlight Sonata As a composer and musician, having to experience hearing lost is overwhelming, devastating and very disturbing. In 1800, the world famous composer, Ludwig van Beethoven found that he was suffering from hearing loss, and began to be really frustrated about this situation. He knew that his successful career would blow up if people found out he was deaf, and they would start questioning him. However, Beethoven did not give up. Instead, he continued working but in a rather quiet and lonely place. Between 1800 and 1802, Beethoven had a transformative period, and that’s when the beginning of his second style commence. Although his outer hearing has weakened, his inner hearing continued to grow and develop. In the spring

14 “Moonlight” is divided into three movements. Adagio sostenuto, Allegretto and Presto agitato. Adagio sostenuto is in C sharp minor, and the movement opens with the left hand playing an octave, with a rolling triplet accompaniment in the right hand. The harmony is so fundamental to producing the atmosphere of the piece; it is a very identifiable musical feature of the work. The sonata is played in 4/4 meter and has a relaxed, dragging tempo, which adds to the dreaminess and fantasy it represents. The ostinato triplet continues throughout the sonata. This repetition is highly effective to the feeling of the gloomy emotion that develops in the sonata and connect the different portions of the movement together, so it is not boring at all. The dynamics of the entire first movement is quite easy to identify as it is played mostly pianissimo—quietly—as Beethoven once said “it should be played as delicately as possible and without dampers.” This sets and adds to the mood of the deep, gloomy and dream-like atmosphere. The melody consists of a subtle climb in pitch, from very low to higher than it has ever been in the piece with a feeling of loneliness, desperation and lack of hope. It is a moment of quiet in this noisy and complicated world, but yet has a hint of sadness. It seems as if it is asking the world why things are the way they are. In Beethoven’s case, he was asking why it has to be him who has hearing loss with outsiders judging

Many unfortunate things happened to Schumann in 1850s. Having to deal with those personal things, he was very stressful and resulted in drink and smoking heavily. Unfortunately, Schumann slowly let go of his talent and brilliance in keyboard and became active as a critic. At the same time, he also developed into quite a capable composer. The Fantasiestucke is a set of eight pieces for piano written by Schumann in 1837. He dedicated the pieces to a good friend of his, Fraulein Anna Robena Laidlaw, an accomplished and attractive 18-year-old Scottish pianist. He composed the pieces with two characters in mind—Florestan and Eusebius—representing the contrast of his personality. Florestan characterises his passionate side and Eusebius the dreaming side. “Des Abends” is nearly the most perfect and intimate piece out of all Schumann’s works. It has a smooth melody which was syncopated throughout the piece, with the left hand maintaining the actual beat. It is then followed by the intense and dramatic “Aufschwung”, which starts off in B flat minor and has an “upward-surging” melody, but at the very end, there was a cadence with a cautious and unhurried abruptness onto the home chord of F