The Eternal Music of the Moonlight

Piano Sonata No. 14

Ludwig van Beethoven

AKA "Moonlight"

 Copyright © 2022

By Ralph F. Couey

I've been around classical music for most of my life, introduced to by my father who was a big fan of Beethoven. This was the music we listened to, at least until the Beatles showed up.  Later on, my activities in band and orchestra through high school and college provided exposure to the genre through the performance side.  There have been several pieces that I still enjoy listening to, such as Beethoven's 5th and 9th, Holst's "The Planets," Kachaturian's "Gayne Ballet Suite," and the last 5 minutes of Mahler's "Resurrection" particularly the performance of the Simon Bolivar Youth Symphony conducted by Gustavo Dudamel (Resurrection Proms) at the 2011 BBC Proms, a concert series featuring youth symphonies and choirs.  I never tire of listening to the beauty and power of that orchestra and choir putting forth with that special energy that uniquely belongs to the young.  And the audience responding in kind with a long, cheering, ovation.  Towards the end, the mezzo soprano Anna Larssen, is trying to keep her emotions under control, at one point, clenching her fist.  But by the end, she is openly in tears.  It never fails to move me.  But that's what great music is supposed to do, to reach into the soul and change you. 

In 1801, Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a three-movement piece he called "Quasi una fantasia" (like a fantasy).  A year later, he dedicated the composition to he pupil, the Countess Giulietta Guicciardi.  The Countess was, by all accounts, a great beauty and through the time he taught her, he fell in love.  He later wrote a 10-page love letter (never sent) the inspiration of which some historians attribute to the Countess.

In structure, the piece is a subdued melody articulated by seemingly endless arpeggios. It is played quietly; reflectively.  Variations in tempo enhance the passion written into the phrases.  "Moonlight," the sobriquet it is universally known by, was actually attributed to the piece five years after Beethoven's death by a critic and poet Ludwig Rellstab.  He described the first movement as moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne in Central Switzerland.   Within 10 years, it was known by almost everyone as the Moonlight Sonata.

Moonlight had a powerful effect on listeners, and continues to have today.  French composer Hector Berlioz described it as "one of those poems that human language does not know how to qualify."

When I first heard those haunting notes, I knew nothing of it's backstory.  In my mind, I likened it to a man whose greatest love had died.  Now, he sits on the lakeshore, watching the silvery track of moonlight across the quietly dancing waters, aching in his loss, and trying to find solace and healing in the quiet of the night.  In the music, I feel his pain, his emptiness as he asks the eternal unanswerable  question of untimely death, "Why?"

I put myself in the presence of that mourner, and try to translate those emotions into the keystrokes.  I play it slow, quietly using only enough pressure to create each note.  As the notes run up and down the scales, I feel the heights of his anguish, and the depths of his loneliness.  The music drifts from minor to major chords, as the man relives brief flashes of warm memories, cut short by the brutal realization that there will be no more of those moments.  His sorrow is palpable, his sorrow crushing; unrelieved as the last notes trickle down to the last chord, as final as the closing of that last door between life and the unknown beyond.

While I played a lot of instruments over the years, piano remains a challenge.  For whatever reason, I can't get my two hands to work together.  So, whatever songs I know I play by ear.  A couple of decades ago, I found Moonlight in a compilation music book belonging to my wife.  I sat down, and doggedly tried to learn the music.  I even wrote the note names above in pencil to try to help me along.  In the end, I get about a third of the way through before I lose my way in the arpeggios.  But I can get through part of it.   love playing Moonlight, even what little I can get through.  There's no other piece of music of any genre that has touched me in the way this one has.  Maybe, someday, I'll learn the whole thing.

This past spring, we went to Virginia to spend time with our son's family.  His wife, Yukyung, is an accomplished pianist.  I can't help but feel a pang of envy, wishing I could play like that.  One evening, after dinner was over and before the kids were shipped off to dreamland, I was wandering around the house when I heard the piano.  The instrument sits in a high-ceilinged circular room just off the front door.  I came up on the opposite side of the staircase as she began to play Moonlight.  I pulled out my phone and began videoing.  I stood there listening until her sister came in and dimed me out.  Yukyung stopped playing and turned around, embarrassed, why I don't know.  But it was a moment putting me back in touch with music that has been with me for as long as I can remember.  

I enjoy a broad range of music, from Renaissance to Rock, Opera, Folk, Jazz, Praise, traditional Irish.  No one genre can hold me for very long. But of all the music I've ever heard or played, nothing means as much to me as the mystical, evocative sound of the Moonlight.