RE: [F_minor] Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

[anniem@interisland.net]

| I agree that Glenn had such a mastery of his technique that he could play
| any B piece at any speed.  Which leaves us wondering all the more what he
| is trying to say in this piece?  Glenn had a very finely tuned
| philosophical mind.  He could not have chopped up this piece into such
| distorted speeds without having thought it through. If he is on record
| (pardon the pun here) of having said that the Moonlight was a favorite,
| then I am all the more confused.  I do not understand him here.

Hi Fred!

I have read & enjoyed this list for several years, but have not felt the
need to say anything until now.  I hope I am addressing this email
properly.

I don't think we should leave this at
isn't-it-wonderful-how-Beethoven's-music-can be-played-so-many-ways,
although that is certainly true. The name "Moonlight" was given to the
sonata by Ludwig Rellstab, music critic and publisher, some thirty years
after the work was completed, and after Beethoven died. (It evoked in him
the image of moonlight on Lake Lucerne.) There is therefore no compelling
reason to believe this was what was in the composer's mind, and if this is
the emotion you're looking for, I agree you won't find it in Gould's
performance. On the other hand, someone who has spent many years studying
Beethoven's life suggests a better description than "moonlight" might be
"intimations of approaching deafness", and Berlioz has called it a
"lamentation".  Consequently the urgency and anxiety and lack of inner
calm you felt from Gould's performance could be entirely appropriate.

I love Beethoven. I have over 1000 CDs of his music, including 33
performances of this sonata (at last count there were over 30 works with
20 or more performances in the collection). Usually, when people ask me
what's my favorite this or that, it's what's playing at the time.  For
example, in addition to the performances by Brendel, Kempff, Barenboim,
Arrau, Richter, and Gilels mentioned earlier, there are also good ones by
Schnabel, Serkin, Pollini, Ashkenazy, Annie Fischer, Frank, Kipnis &
Solomon, and room for more. But Gould's Moonlight, with its urgent first
movement and its third movement flash flood of torrential logic, ah,
that's The One for me.

(What I can't figure out is Gould's Hammerklavier - can anyone help with
that?)

Annie Moss Moore

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