Beethoven 250: Piano Sonata No. 14 "Mondscheinsonate" (Stephen Kovacevich, 1999)

CD cover art: Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840): Mondscheinlandschaft / Moonlit Landscape. Before 1808. Transparentgemälde. Watercolor and opaque watercolor; the moon, cut-and-pasted insert. 232 x 365 mm; secondary support: 239 x 372 mm. Thaw Collection. 1996.150. While Friedrich’s paintings often feature a moon partially veiled behind clouds, in this work he made the full moon the focal point of the drawing. To emphasize the bright moonlight, Friedrich cut a circle out of the watercolor and then pasted unpainted paper over the hole. With the drawing lit from behind by candlelight, the moon would seem to glow, lighting the pond and the white birch tree in contrast to the dark ground. Provenance: Catherina Dorothea Sponholz (1766-1808), the artist's sister; Caroline Sponholz, the artist's niece; F. Pflugradt, Zingst (a descendant of the Sponholz family; until 1941); Galerie Meissner, Zurich; Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw, New York. Inspired by his belief that "the divine is everywhere," Friedrich painted landscapes of immersion in nature as a mystical experience. His first requirement of a work of art was that it should engage the mind and put the viewer into a "soulful" mood. This is one of two surviving transparencies by Friedrich. The moon is a translucent insertion made to be lit from behind by pulsing lamplight in a dark and silenced room, perhaps accompanied by music. In an image of pantheistic communion, the illuminated moon radiates a mysterious power touching a hallowed human figure, triangulated by the spectator standing in the viewpoint of the reverent artist. Thaw Catalogue Raisonné, 2017, no. 133, repr. From: The Morgan Library & Museum. Please click to enlarge the image. In a sufficient enlargement the human figure turns out to be a statue of Jesus Christ.

Beethoven: The Complete Works (80 CD). Warner Classics / © 2019 Parlophone Records Limited. Also available on Spotify etc. I bought my box set from Fuga at Helsinki Music Centre.
    Ludwig van Beethoven 1770–1827.
    Beethoven 250 / corona lockdown listening.

From: CD 20/80  Piano Sonatas Nos. 12–15
Stephen Kovacevich, 1999 (Nos. 12–14) and 1998 (No. 15)
Opus 27 "Sonata quasi una fantasia"

Opus 27 Nr. 2: Klaviersonate Nr. 14 in cis-Moll „Mondscheinsonate“ (1801)
    SONATA quasi una FANTASIA per il Clavicembalo o Piano=forte composta e dedicata alla Damigella Contessa Giulietta Guicciardi da Luigi van Beethoven Opera 27 No. 2. In Vienna presso Gio. Cappi Sulla Piazza di St. Michele No. 5.
    Erster Satz, Adagio sostenuto, cis-Moll, alla breve, 69 Takte
    Zweiter Satz, Allegretto, Des-Dur, 3/4-Takt, 60 Takte
    Dritter Satz, Presto agitato, cis-Moll, 4/4-Takt, 200 Takte, in diesem Satz wird mehrfach ein Neapolitanischer Sextakkord eingesetzt.

AA: Beethoven called the two sonatas of his Opus 27 "Sonata quasi una fantasia". The second one was not composed with Countess Giulietta Guicciardi in mind but was dedicated to her when the sonatas were printed.

The title "Moonlight Sonata" was given posthumously. There are those who think it trivializes the piece, but I think it is a good title, because Beethoven was a very big nature lover.

Warner Classics has selected as cd cover art Caspar David Friedrich's transparency painting "Mondscheinlandschaft", painted before 1808. Friedrich was the greatest moonlight painter of all times and an inspiration for future moonlight painters. The transparency was meant to be displayed in a dark room with candlelight behind the image. Music could be played, and could there have been a better selection than Beethoven's Opus 27 Nr. 2? It was not yet called the "Moonlight Sonata", but perhaps the title emerged in occasions like this?

Of Beethoven's compositions, the Moonlight Sonata is the most popular on film soundtracks by a huge margin. It has been popular in horror fantasy and Charlie Brown cartoons. It has been the theme music for several television series.

It would not be surprising to learn that live performances of the Moonlight Sonata started as soon as cinemas started to hire pianists, and the popularity is undiminished today. As a cross-section of the Moonlight Sonata's ubiquity in the movies, a sample from the 1940s: The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson, director, Val Lewton, producer, 1943), Kolberg (Veit Harlan, 1945), A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Elia Kazan, 1945), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Albert Lewin, 1945), Beyond the Pecos (Lambert Hillyer, 1945), Boule de Suif (Christian-Jaque, 1945, starring Micheline Presle), The Cross of Love (Teuvo Tulio, 1945, starring Regina Linnanheimo), Music in Darkness (Ingmar Bergman, 1948, starring Mai Zetterling), So This Is New York (Richard Fleischer, 1948), Somewhere in Europe (Géza von Radványi, 1948) and Le Signal rouge (Ernst Neubach, 1949, starring Erich von Stroheim & Denise Vernac).

The Moonlight Sonata was an instant pop hit. It also became a treasure of mankind.

...

PS. 23 July 2020. Having written the above I listened to András Schiff's Guardian Lecture on the C sharp minor sonata. "I don't know any other work that has such a thick layer of false tradition on it", Schiff states and goes on to demolish the received approach. We learn about alla breve, the temptation to play the first movement too slowly (slowly enough to manage "lunch, breakfast and dinner"), overtones, ostinato triplets and dotted rhythms. The manuscript exists. You need to forget tradition and restore Beethoven by studying the original score.

The Allegretto movement is for Schiff like a string quartet, and he agrees with Franz Liszt that it is "like a little flower between two abysses".

In the Presto agitato we are "back in the inferno", and back in sonata form. Schiff praises Beethoven as a master of final movements, his sense of architecture and also his role as "the first great composer of the pedal". Pedal markings are essential and precise. Lecturing about the 13. sonata Schiff detected a wonderful new sonority, no doubt also enabled by the mastery of the pedal.

The "Moonlight" title is nonsense for Schiff, the invention of Ludwig Rellstab, a poet immortalized by Schubert in many Lieder in Schwanengesang, including the Serenade (Ständchen). Schiff pays attention to the funeral march rhythm of the Adagio sostenuto and agrees with Edwin Fischer who discovered Beethoven's notes from Mozart's scene where Don Giovanni murders the Commendatore. Beethoven transposed Mozart's theme to C sharp minor and created a death scene of his own.

This makes sense. Schiff also describes the first movement as "a kind of a landscape" and "a nocturnal piece" and characterizes the finale as "visionary, scary music". I don't think we are so far from moonlight any longer... Be it as it may, Schiff's description helps understand why this sonata is in favour in horror fiction. "Night time is the right time" not only for love but also for death.

For Schiff the Adagio sostenuto is "very difficult to define". It is not in sonata form but almost like a Bach prelude, he states. "Melodically almost nothing is happening" according to Schiff as the Adagio evolves in ostinato triplets. For me, Beethoven here also anticipates the cinema's master of the ostinato, Bernard Herrmann, who avoided melody, and perhaps Philip Glass and John Carpenter.

Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840): Zwei Männer in Betrachtung des Mondes / Two men contemplating the Moon. Painting. Between 1819 and 1820. Oil on canvas. 35 cm ; 44.5 cm. Galerie Neue Meister. 1830: acquired by Johan Christian Dahl. National Gallery of Norway. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Dahl Friedrich Faltblatt. Geschenk an Johan Christian Dahl, Johan Christian Clausen Dahl - Fluss im Plauenschen Grund Gegengeschenk Dahls an Caspar David Friedrich. Source / Photographer: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Gemeinfrei. From: Wikimedia Commons. Please click to enlarge the image.