Sonata (quasi una fantasia) in C sharp minor Op.27 No.2 “Moonlight” (1801)

Although the “Moonlight” title inseparably attached to the Piano Sonata in C sharp minor doesn’t derive from Beethoven, it is not entirely inappropriate. The fact that it has stuck for more than a hundred and fifty years since the critic Ludwig Rellstab was inspired by the sonata to think of moonlight rippling on the surface of Lake Lucerne is a clear demonstration of that. Although pianos have changed since Beethoven’s and Rellstab’s days the peculiarly nocturnal acoustic atmosphere of the first movement remains the same.

Beethoven’s acoustic experiments here are linked with the structural innovations he was making at the same time. The two Op.27 Sonatas are so unpredictable in form that the composer took the precaution of describing them as both “sonata quasi una fantasia.” So in the first movement of the “Moonlight,” as well as asking the pianist to play the same triplet figure two hundred time over, he makes the unprecedented suggestion that the sustaining pedal should be held down throughout. The effect is both obsessive and hypnotic.

Beethoven now slides directly, without pause or transition, from the quaver triplets of the Adagio sostenuto in C sharp minor to the 3/4 of the Allegretto in D flat major. Before the third movement, however, there is a definite break. The function of the Presto agitato is to provide a direct contrast and equal balance to the preceding two-movements-in-one. When it has almost run its course, it comes to a temporary rest on pedal-sustained harmonies to make an acoustic link with the moon-lit opening of the work.

The “Moonlight” title inseparably attached to the Piano Sonata in C sharp minor doesn’t derive from Beethoven either. But the nickname is not inappropriate in this case either. The fact that it has stuck for more than a hundred and fifty years since the critic Ludwig Rellstab was inspired by the sonata to think of moonlight rippling on the surface of Lake Lucerne is a clear demonstration of that. Although pianos have changed since Beethoven’s and Rellstab’s days the peculiarly nocturnal acoustic atmosphere of the first movement remains the same.

Beethoven’s acoustic experiments here are linked with the structural innovations he was making at the same time. The “Pastoral” Sonata also written in 1801 follows a more or less conventional pattern. The two Op.27 Sonatas, on the other hand, are so unpredictable in form that the composer took the precaution of describing them both as “sonata quasi una fantasia.” So in the first movement of the “Moonlight,” as well as asking the pianist to play the same triplet figure two hundred time over, he makes the unprecedented suggestion that the sustaining pedal should be held down throughout. The effect of the rhythmic repetition, of the repeated striking of unstopped strings, and of the accumulated harmonies is both obsessive and hypnotic.

Having prepared us in this way, Beethoven can now slide directly, without pause or transition, from the quaver triplets of the Adagio sostenuto in C sharp minor to the 3/4 of the Allegretto in D flat major. Before the third movement, however, there is a definite break. The function of the Presto agitato is to provide a direct contrast and equal balance to the preceding two-movements-in-one. The triple-time poise is swept away by the persecuted 4/4 of a movement whose sonata-form construction seems self-contained and quite independent of the rest of the sonata. And yet, inevitably, the C sharp minor arpeggios are heard as an echo of the triplet broken chords of the Adagio sostenuto. And, when the Presto has almost run its course, it comes to a temporary rest on pedal-sustained harmonies to make an acoustic link with the moon-lit opening of the work.

Standard Beethoven scholarship will tell you that the “Moonlight” nickname long attached to the Sonata in C sharp minor Op.27 No.2 is “scarcely appropriate” – or something to the same disapproving effect. It is true that it has nothing to do with Beethoven himself and that it derives from an observation made five years after the composer’s death by the poet Ludwig Rellstab, who compared the atmosphere of the first movement to a moonlit night on Lake Lucerne. And, of course, Beethoven never went anywhere near Lucerne. But leaving aside the geographical detail of Rellstab’s observation, is it really so inappropriate?

No piano sonata before this, it is safe to say, had begun with such an extended study in colour. In the first movement, as well as asking the pianist to play the same triplet figure “with the utmost delicacy” two hundred time over, the composer makes the unprecedented suggestion that the sustaining pedal should be held down throughout. The effect of the rhythmic repetition, of the repeated striking of unstopped strings, and of the accumulated harmonies is both obsessive and hypnotic. It is about atmosphere, which is partly a matter of piano colouring and partly a matter of harmony but not much to do with melody. The theme introduced and sustained by the right hand until is passes to left in the closing bars is, as Berlioz remarked, “the efflorescence of those sombre harmonies.”

Beethoven’s own description of the Sonata in C sharp minor (applied also to its companion in E flat Op.27 No.1) is “quasi una fantasia” – a warning not to expect it to conform to the conventional pattern of the piano sonata. The Adagio sostenuto slides without pause or transition into the Allegretto second movement, a piece somewhere between minuet and scherzo which, in its lyrical innocence, was described by Liszt as “a flower between two chasms.”

While the first and third movements cannot really be likened in that way, it is true that the Presto agitato engulfs the listener in despair. That might be a “scarcely appropriate” romantic interpretation but, given those right-hand arpeggios seething upwards from the bass of the piano and repeatedly colliding with the immovable obstacle of two heavily percussive chords, it is impossible to escape the feeling that this is what Beethoven is saying. His astonished contemporaries would have found it even harder. Subconsciously at least, it is also impossible not to associate those C sharp minor arpeggios with the obsessive if much quieter triplet figures of the first movement. And, when the Presto has almost run its course and comes to a temporary rest on pedal-sustained harmonies, it makes an acoustic as well as harmonic link with opening of the work, violently transformed though the atmosphere certainly is.

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Valse-Caprice No.1 in A major Op.30 (1882)

Valse-Caprice No.2 in D flat major Op.38 (1884)

Considering the extent of the Chopin influence on Fauré’s early piano music, one would expect to find more Chopin features in at least the first two of the four Valses-Caprices he wrote between 1882 and 1894. In fact, while Chopin is not entirely absent, the more significant influence here is Schubert as elaborated in Liszt’s Soirées de Vienne with a little waltz-time Saint-Saëns and Chabrier added into the virtuoso mix. Anyway, whatever their stylistic origins, the Valses-Caprices are highly attractive works which deserve to be heard more often than they actually are. The reason why pianists tend to avoid them is not easy to work out but, if Saint-Saëns’s experience with No.2 in D flat is anything to go by, it could be to do with their frankly capricious construction: he particularly liked the piece, he told Fauré, but never played it in public because he had difficulty in memorising it.

Valse-Caprice No.1 in A major, which rejoices in half a dozen waltz tunes in not many more minutes, is no less capricious than its successor but perhaps less elusive. A comparatively regular feature in this case is that – nearly 30 years before Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales – it alternates between what Schubert (or his publishers) called valses sentimentales and valses nobles, contrasting seductive legato melody with more percussive material. The intimately expressive pp melody at the beginning, for example, is repeated and then offset by a short but aggressive ff episode. The same thing happens when the next theme, marked p e leggieramente, meets an exuberant ff allargando. After a repeat of the first pair, a new dolce ed espressivo theme in gently articulated even crotchets is confronted by the same ff allargando material. At the molto moderato beginning of what one might call the coda of the piece another dolce ed espressivo melody is briefly introduced before, in an accelerating tempo, it is converted into 2/4 rhythms in the right hand over the continuing 3/4 in the left. The allargando motif makes its last appearance on a crescendo in the closing bars.

In Valse-Caprice No.2 in D flat major – which, unlike No.1 in A, extends to including a development section – Fauré is less consistent in contrasting valses sentimentales with valses nobles. Although the lilting melody heard in the opening bars meets a rather quicker percussive contrast at an early stage, the lyrical theme which enters in the right hand over quaver figuration in the left has no such counterpart. It is followed instead by a recall of the opening material and, at a slower tempo, an expressive new melody in C sharp minor – which, together with the opening theme, features in the capriciously motivated development section. Similarly capricious, following a short silence, is an increasingly agitated valse noble with a heavily percussive climax. As calm is restored, the opening melody is recalled high in the right hand before its percussive counterpart initiates a frantic coda.