Beethoven's Mondscheinsonate

Today I'd like to talk about a piece of music that made me think positive once more. It's Beethoven's Piano Sonata No.14 in C minor "Quasi una fantasia" a.k.a. the Moonshine Sonata (open this in new tab). I don't know too much about real classical music, but this one is a truly goosebump-evoking tune.

At dinner with my friends "T to tha B" and Walid we talked about, well, we talked a lot actually, but one thing we talked about was music. A while ago Walid posted a link on a website full of social networks containing this exact piece. I clicked it and began to listen to it. After a few seconds I stopped doing what I was doing and leaned back to just enjoy the tune. 

Walid told us the story behind the piece and its title, and it goes something like this. Beethoven composed it in 1801. At that time he had a seventeen year old pupil named Giulietta Guicciardi. She was a blind countess who Beethoven had fallen in love with. One day she told him that more than anything else, she wished to see the moon. That night young Beethoven went home and wrote this song while looking at the moon, and thinking about his love Giulietta. 

Quite nice, isn't it? Being born in Bonn, I feel like I should tell you that Ludwig van Beethoven was born there, too. And I kind of like the idea that some two hundred years ago old Ludwig had learned to play the piano in the same street where we had our pasta tonight. 

It's kind of funny though, there's this little museum they've built for him right where he was born. You can walk in an purchase all kinds of Beethoven stuff. They have pens and umbrellas next to post cards and calenders. If you're willing to pay five Euros you can walk through a room with a few instruments and take a look at the garden, too. And for all those years, I thought that was the room he was born in, when it's really just the museum. Last year, when my friend Patrick and his mate John from the UK came for a visit, I learned that Beethoven's crib was actually the old building next door.

It's stupid. It's like eating donuts for years and then one day finding out about artificial sweetners. It's close enough, but really it's wrong. At the end of the day it's no big deal, but you still feel tricked. Anyways, I think it's a fantastic piece of music, definitely inspiring.