This year marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth. He was born in Bonn, Germany in December 1770. My initial intention was to write an article about the so-called genius of Bonn, but then I decided to just let his work do the talking. That’s why I put together a playlist of recommended pieces.

The first composition on my playlist is the so-called Moonlight Sonata.

Graphics / Margrét Aðalheiður Önnu Þorgeirsdóttir

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# Minor (Sonata quasi una fantasia in C-sharp minor Opus 27, Moonlight Sonata),

First movement – Adagio sostenuto, C-sharp minor

Second movement – Allegretto, D-flat major

Third movement – Presto agitato, C-sharp minor

The Moonlight Sonata is one of Ludwig van Beethoven’s most famous compositions. It’s a romantic piece that doesn't follow the traditional movement arrangement of the classical period. It's more than just a musical creation, it's a piece of Beethoven's soul.

Beethoven completed the sonata in 1801, and in 1802 he dedicated it to the Italian Countess Giulietta Guicciardi. The genius of Bonn gave his sonata the Italian title “Sonata quasi una fantasia”, which means “Sonata almost like a fantasy”. In 1801, Beethoven became Giulietta’s piano teacher. He became highly infatuated with her and soon fell in love with her. He proposed to Giulietta, but her father forbade her to accept him because he was “without rank, fortune or permanent engagement”.

The first movement contains mystery and tragedy. It doesn’t include any clues about the temper or frenzy that will come later from the stormy, strikingly arduous and berserkly sprightly third movement, the presto agitato. The beginning of the sonata is dreamy and otherworldly, shepherding you into a nocturnal scene, like an idyllic midsummer’s night. German music critic Ludwig Rellstab expressed his feelings about the incipit of the sonata, writing that for him it brought to mind a picture of moonlight reflecting on Lake Lucerne. Since then, the piece has been called “Moonlight Sonata”. However, after a few bars of music comes the disenchantment; the music approaches the character of a funeral march.

“Whoever understands my music will remain free from the miseries that the other men are dragging with them.”

— Ludwig van Beethoven

The first movement resembles the music Mozart wrote for Don Giovanni, when Don Giovanni stabs the Commendatore to death in a duel. The pianist Edwin Fischer had no doubt that Beethoven composed the first part of the sonata by transposing that passage of Mozart’s opera into C-sharp minor. Solitude, moaning, desperation, and melancholy transpire from the first movement of Moonlight Sonata. Is it an impossible love - or better yet, a forbidden love? Or maybe even a contemplation about death? In the third movement, it seems like he is letting out his acrimony in a hemorrhage of fast arpeggios. He conveys the impression of a vehement man. Was he furious at the Countess's father? Or furious at the world? However, there is calm after the storm. At the end of the third movement, Beethoven's rage seems to subside. As for the second movement? Franz Liszt described it as “a flower between two abysses”. It is understood that the two “abysses” are the first and third movements.

At that period, Beethoven was beginning to show signs of deafness and saw his life as a series of quixotic illusions and disillusions, but he realized that his music would have been his salvation, a way to set himself free.

Beethoven’s Birthday Playlist

Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 (Moonlight Sonata)
Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37
Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73
Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major, Op.55, (also Italian Sinfonia Eroica, Heroic Symphony)
Wellington's Victory, Op. 91
Egmont, Op. 84, Overture
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67
Romance for violin and orchestra No. 2 in F major, Op. 50
Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109
Piano Sonata No. 31 in A♭ major, Op. 110
Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125
Grosse Fuge (German spelling: Große Fuge, also known in English as the Great Fugue or Grand Fugue), Op. 133
String Quartet No. 16 in F major (1826), Op. 135