WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.500 If you follow classical music at all, Beethoven's 00:00:02.500 --> 00:00:05.759 piano sonata number 14 is just, well, it's baked 00:00:05.759 --> 00:00:08.400 into your DNA. Oh, absolutely. You know the melodies. 00:00:08.480 --> 00:00:10.900 You've seen it referenced in movies, pop culture. 00:00:11.099 --> 00:00:13.179 And honestly, if you've ever sat at a keyboard, 00:00:13.419 --> 00:00:15.320 you've probably tried to plunk out those opening 00:00:15.320 --> 00:00:17.420 notes yourself. Most people have at least tried 00:00:17.420 --> 00:00:19.960 the first few bars. Right. But looking through 00:00:19.960 --> 00:00:22.120 this stack of notes today, along with the Wikipedia 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:26.519 article on the piece, I realized how much of 00:00:26.519 --> 00:00:29.039 what we think we know about the sonata is actually 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:32.939 just... centuries -old PR. It really is. So our 00:00:32.939 --> 00:00:36.100 mission today for this deep dive is to completely 00:00:36.100 --> 00:00:39.399 strip away the rumors, the myths, and the, frankly, 00:00:39.500 --> 00:00:42.500 extremely successful marketing. We want to reveal 00:00:42.500 --> 00:00:45.840 the truly rebellious, rule -breaking, and technically 00:00:45.840 --> 00:00:48.520 demanding masterpiece hiding underneath. I love 00:00:48.520 --> 00:00:50.640 that. And to set the proper mood for this, I 00:00:50.640 --> 00:00:53.179 am changing our studio backdrop right now. to 00:00:53.179 --> 00:00:56.039 a dimly lit 19th century vienna music parlor 00:00:56.039 --> 00:00:58.700 yeah so just imagine the heavy velvet drapes 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:02.079 the long shadows cast by candlelight and a wooden 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:04.620 early era piano sitting right in the center of 00:01:04.620 --> 00:01:07.480 the room setting this physical scene is crucial 00:01:07.480 --> 00:01:10.299 because what we are looking at today is essentially 00:01:10.299 --> 00:01:13.989 a massive historical game of telephone a very 00:01:13.989 --> 00:01:16.810 long game of telephone exactly is it a fascinating 00:01:16.810 --> 00:01:20.170 case study and how a few choice words from a 00:01:20.170 --> 00:01:23.549 critic can entirely rewrite the cultural dna 00:01:23.549 --> 00:01:26.670 of a piece of music it changes how millions of 00:01:26.670 --> 00:01:29.349 people emotionally experience a work of art okay 00:01:29.349 --> 00:01:30.950 let's unpack this because we have to start with 00:01:30.950 --> 00:01:32.569 the biggest shocker in all of our source material 00:01:32.569 --> 00:01:36.750 today the name yes beethoven never ever called 00:01:36.750 --> 00:01:39.590 this piece the Moonlight Sonata. Not once. He 00:01:39.590 --> 00:01:41.170 didn't write it about the moon. He didn't write 00:01:41.170 --> 00:01:43.650 it about a nighttime stroll. The name Moonlight 00:01:43.650 --> 00:01:47.230 was actually proposed in 1832. That is a full 00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:49.730 five years after Beethoven was already in his 00:01:49.730 --> 00:01:52.670 grave. It is a profound historical irony that 00:01:52.670 --> 00:01:55.609 his most famous branding had absolutely nothing 00:01:55.609 --> 00:01:58.510 to do with him. To understand how this happened, 00:01:58.569 --> 00:02:00.069 we really need to look at the actual timeline. 00:02:00.450 --> 00:02:03.769 So Beethoven completed this work in 1801 when 00:02:03.769 --> 00:02:05.739 he was around 30 years old. Right, in the middle 00:02:05.739 --> 00:02:08.319 of his career. Yes. And he seemingly wrote this 00:02:08.319 --> 00:02:11.580 out of pure creative drive. There is no record 00:02:11.580 --> 00:02:14.219 of a specific commission for it. It was published 00:02:14.219 --> 00:02:17.960 the following year, in 1802, in Vienna. And it 00:02:17.960 --> 00:02:20.860 was dedicated to his young piano pupil, Countess 00:02:20.860 --> 00:02:23.800 Giulietta Ricciardi. Giulietta Ricciardi. Right. 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:26.659 And for a long time, people just assumed this 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.520 dedication was proof of some tortured romantic 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:32.460 devotion to her. Which is where the notes get 00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:35.639 genuinely funny to me. Our sources, specifically 00:02:35.639 --> 00:02:38.400 Alexander Wheelock Thayer's biography, reveal 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:40.699 that Beethoven actually intended to dedicate 00:02:40.699 --> 00:02:43.039 a completely different piece of music to her. 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:45.280 A totally different piece. It was the Rondo in 00:02:45.280 --> 00:02:49.120 G, Opus 51, No. 2. And just real quick, for those 00:02:49.120 --> 00:02:51.219 of us trying to keep the catalog straight, opus 00:02:51.219 --> 00:02:53.919 just refers to the chronological numbering of 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:55.819 his published works, right? That is correct. 00:02:55.919 --> 00:02:57.879 It's just a publisher's tracking number, essentially. 00:02:58.120 --> 00:03:00.379 So he had this nice rondo all lined up for the 00:03:00.379 --> 00:03:02.819 young countess. But at the last minute, due to 00:03:02.819 --> 00:03:05.039 some social or... or financial obligations, he 00:03:05.039 --> 00:03:06.659 actually had to give that rondo to a different 00:03:06.659 --> 00:03:09.840 noble one, Countess Lichnowsky. So Beethoven 00:03:09.840 --> 00:03:12.879 is caught completely empty -handed. He has to 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:15.840 scramble to find a replacement gift. He panicked. 00:03:15.879 --> 00:03:19.159 He literally just grabs this newly written C 00:03:19.159 --> 00:03:22.439 -sharp minor sonata sitting on his desk and slaps 00:03:22.439 --> 00:03:25.520 Giulietta Gucciardi's name on it. It's the 19th 00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:27.500 century equivalent of panicking on the way to 00:03:27.500 --> 00:03:29.560 a birthday party and re -gifting something you 00:03:29.560 --> 00:03:31.780 found in your closet. It really is. It strips 00:03:31.780 --> 00:03:34.080 away a lot of the initial romantic sheen, doesn't 00:03:34.080 --> 00:03:36.379 it? Oh, totally. The dedication was a backup 00:03:36.379 --> 00:03:39.400 plan. But that brings us to the real culprit 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:41.780 behind the nickname. Because if Beethoven didn't 00:03:41.780 --> 00:03:44.250 call it Moonlight, the credit... or the blame, 00:03:44.389 --> 00:03:46.409 depending on how you look at it, usually goes 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.590 to a German music critic and poet named Ludwig 00:03:49.590 --> 00:03:53.789 Relstab. Ludwig Relstab. Yes. In 1832, Relstab 00:03:53.789 --> 00:03:56.669 published a story that featured a wildly evocative 00:03:56.669 --> 00:03:59.370 review of the sonata's first movement. And the 00:03:59.370 --> 00:04:02.710 language Relstab used is just peak 19th century 00:04:02.710 --> 00:04:05.189 romanticism. It is so over the top. Oh, it's 00:04:05.189 --> 00:04:07.270 incredibly dramatic. I have the quote right here. 00:04:07.449 --> 00:04:10.780 He wrote, The lake reposes in twilight moonshimmer. 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:14.319 Muffled waves strike the dark shore. Gloony wooded 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:16.839 mountains rise and close off the holy place from 00:04:16.839 --> 00:04:20.040 the world. Ghostly swans glide with whispering 00:04:20.040 --> 00:04:23.620 rustles on the tide. And an Aeolian harp sends 00:04:23.620 --> 00:04:26.519 down mysterious tones of lovelorn yearning from 00:04:26.519 --> 00:04:30.160 the ruins. Ghostly swans? Ghostly swans. Lovelorn 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:32.220 yearning. It reads like a gothic novel, not a 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:34.360 music review. What's fascinating here is the 00:04:34.360 --> 00:04:36.720 critical thinking required to track this myth 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:39.160 to its modern form. form. Because if you know 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:41.620 the trivia about the Moonlight Sonata, you have 00:04:41.620 --> 00:04:43.399 almost certainly heard that it was inspired by 00:04:43.399 --> 00:04:45.720 moonlight shining on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. 00:04:45.980 --> 00:04:47.899 Right. That's a famous trivia fact everyone shares. 00:04:48.160 --> 00:04:50.459 But look closely at Relstab's original quote. 00:04:51.079 --> 00:04:53.319 He never mentions Lake Lucerne. Wait, really? 00:04:53.600 --> 00:04:56.680 Really. The lake in his review is entirely anonymous. 00:04:56.980 --> 00:04:59.379 So where does the whole Swiss vacation part come 00:04:59.379 --> 00:05:01.620 into play? That highly specific geographical 00:05:01.620 --> 00:05:04.759 detail was added almost 20 years later, in 1852, 00:05:05.079 --> 00:05:08.220 by a musicologist named Wilhelm von Lenz. Ah, 00:05:08.259 --> 00:05:11.079 of course. Lenz wrote a piece summarizing Relstab's 00:05:11.079 --> 00:05:14.560 old review, and he just casually inserted Lake 00:05:14.560 --> 00:05:17.480 Lucerne into the narrative. He claimed the nickname 00:05:17.480 --> 00:05:20.079 had been making connoisseurs in Germany cry out 00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:23.079 in recognition for 20 years. So a critic writes 00:05:23.079 --> 00:05:26.399 a poetic review. Decades later, another writer 00:05:26.399 --> 00:05:28.899 embellishes it with a specific location. And 00:05:28.899 --> 00:05:31.540 suddenly the entire world accepts as historical 00:05:31.540 --> 00:05:34.699 fact that Beethoven wrote a song about a Swiss 00:05:34.699 --> 00:05:37.740 lake. Precisely. It's a fabrication built on 00:05:37.740 --> 00:05:39.839 a metaphor. And reading through the sources, 00:05:40.019 --> 00:05:42.279 music critics are bitterly divided on whether 00:05:42.279 --> 00:05:45.160 this nickname is a triumph or a disaster. A lot 00:05:45.160 --> 00:05:47.439 of purists call the title completely absurd. 00:05:47.680 --> 00:05:49.980 They really hate it. They argue it is a deeply 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:52.500 misleading way to approach a piece of music that 00:05:52.500 --> 00:05:54.980 structurally functions much more like a funeral 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.980 march than a pleasant boat ride. By calling it 00:05:57.980 --> 00:06:00.980 Moonlight, you prime the listener to expect romance 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:03.199 instead of tragedy. We should look at the counter 00:06:03.199 --> 00:06:05.139 -argument, though, because Compton Mackenzie, 00:06:05.279 --> 00:06:07.720 the founder of Gramophone magazine, made a very 00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:09.420 compelling point about this. What did she say? 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:11.800 Mackenzie argued that the title was ultimately 00:06:11.800 --> 00:06:14.639 harmless and that austere critics shouldn't get 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:17.540 so hysterically angry at poor Relstab. Right. 00:06:17.800 --> 00:06:19.660 Mackenzie believed that if the general public 00:06:19.660 --> 00:06:22.240 hadn't responded so deeply to that specific suggestion 00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:25.259 of moonlight, Relstab's remark would have been 00:06:25.259 --> 00:06:28.680 completely forgotten by history. The imagery 00:06:28.680 --> 00:06:31.199 gave everyday listeners a bridge to connect with 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:34.269 complex instrumental music. That is a fair point. 00:06:34.410 --> 00:06:36.589 It functioned as an incredibly sticky marketing 00:06:36.589 --> 00:06:39.629 hook. But here's where it gets really interesting. 00:06:40.290 --> 00:06:43.389 If it's not the Moonlight Sonata, what did Beethoven 00:06:43.389 --> 00:06:46.189 actually want us to feel? That is the big question. 00:06:46.389 --> 00:06:48.610 Did he leave any clues in his original title? 00:06:48.949 --> 00:06:51.149 Because the first edition of the score from 1802 00:06:51.149 --> 00:06:54.439 has a specific heading in Italian, right? Sonata 00:06:54.439 --> 00:06:57.220 quasi una fantasia. Yes. Which translates to 00:06:57.220 --> 00:06:59.660 sonata resembling a fantasy or in the manner 00:06:59.660 --> 00:07:02.300 of a fantasy. And that seemingly simple title 00:07:02.300 --> 00:07:04.759 is actually a massive flashing sign that Beethoven 00:07:04.759 --> 00:07:07.600 was actively breaking the rules of his era. He 00:07:07.600 --> 00:07:09.560 was throwing the rulebook out the window entirely. 00:07:09.899 --> 00:07:12.060 To appreciate the rebellion here, we have to 00:07:12.060 --> 00:07:13.800 look at the structural mechanics of the classical 00:07:13.800 --> 00:07:17.139 period. Set the stage for us. Traditional sonatas 00:07:17.139 --> 00:07:20.250 followed a very strict expected recipe. The layout 00:07:20.250 --> 00:07:22.829 was almost universally a fast movement to grab 00:07:22.829 --> 00:07:25.290 attention, followed by a slow lyrical movement 00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:27.970 and finishing with a fast, energetic finale. 00:07:28.290 --> 00:07:31.050 Fast, slow, fast. Exactly. Fast, slow, fast. 00:07:31.230 --> 00:07:33.649 Beethoven decided to completely disregard that 00:07:33.649 --> 00:07:35.769 expected dopamine hit. So what does breaking 00:07:35.769 --> 00:07:38.170 that structure actually do to the listener's 00:07:38.170 --> 00:07:40.750 experience? I mean, why change it? It creates 00:07:40.750 --> 00:07:43.269 what musicologists call an end -weighted trajectory. 00:07:44.250 --> 00:07:47.389 He decided to hold back all the rapid, fiery, 00:07:47.569 --> 00:07:50.329 virtuosic music until the very end of the piece. 00:07:50.529 --> 00:07:52.910 Building the tension. Right. The German critic 00:07:52.910 --> 00:07:55.610 Paul Becker analyzed this beautifully. He stated 00:07:55.610 --> 00:07:57.629 that in traditional sonatas, the opening fast 00:07:57.629 --> 00:08:00.209 movement locked the piece into a definite character 00:08:00.209 --> 00:08:02.629 right from the start. It told you exactly what 00:08:02.629 --> 00:08:04.529 the piece was about immediately. But Beethoven 00:08:04.529 --> 00:08:06.850 didn't want that. No, he rebelled against that 00:08:06.850 --> 00:08:08.970 determinative quality. He didn't want the first 00:08:08.970 --> 00:08:11.290 movement to be a bold proposition. He wanted 00:08:11.290 --> 00:08:13.959 it to be a prelude. He forces the audience to 00:08:13.959 --> 00:08:16.220 sit in the tension. He delays the gratification. 00:08:16.899 --> 00:08:21.019 So he starts with this slow, hypnotic first movement, 00:08:21.240 --> 00:08:24.220 the adagio sostenuto. Yes. And this is the movement 00:08:24.220 --> 00:08:26.500 everyone knows. It opens with an octave in the 00:08:26.500 --> 00:08:29.199 left hand and this rolling, continuous triplet 00:08:29.199 --> 00:08:32.139 pattern in the right hand. And it's written in 00:08:32.139 --> 00:08:34.820 C sharp minor. Which is key here. Right. For 00:08:34.820 --> 00:08:36.679 those of us who aren't reading sheet music right 00:08:36.679 --> 00:08:39.000 now, what does C sharp minor actually feel like? 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:41.919 Is that what gives it that dark? brooding quality? 00:08:42.200 --> 00:08:44.860 Yes. C sharp minor is often associated with a 00:08:44.860 --> 00:08:48.059 sense of deep claustrophobia, despair, or profound 00:08:48.059 --> 00:08:51.659 grief. It is not a casual breezy key by any means. 00:08:51.720 --> 00:08:53.820 Definitely not. And the entire movement is played 00:08:53.820 --> 00:08:57.440 pianissimo, which means very quietly. The loudest 00:08:57.440 --> 00:08:59.750 it ever gets is merely piano. Or just quietly. 00:09:00.110 --> 00:09:03.029 The composer Hector Berlioz called it a lamentation 00:09:03.029 --> 00:09:05.169 that human language doesn't know how to qualify. 00:09:05.450 --> 00:09:08.669 And Beethoven's own student, Carl Czerny, described 00:09:08.669 --> 00:09:11.769 it as a nocturnal scene with a mournful ghostly 00:09:11.769 --> 00:09:13.889 voice sounding from the distance. It is bleak. 00:09:13.889 --> 00:09:16.669 It is so bleak. And yet it was instantly massively 00:09:16.669 --> 00:09:19.669 popular. Huge hit. Which actually drove Beethoven 00:09:19.669 --> 00:09:22.799 crazy. This is one of the most humanizing details 00:09:22.799 --> 00:09:25.480 from the sources. The movement became such a 00:09:25.480 --> 00:09:28.240 smash hit in his own lifetime that it genuinely 00:09:28.240 --> 00:09:31.039 exasperated him. He couldn't stand it. He complained 00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:33.980 to his student, Sharni, saying, Surely I've written 00:09:33.980 --> 00:09:36.679 better things. You can just picture the frustration 00:09:36.679 --> 00:09:40.179 of a boundary -pushing artist realizing his quiet 00:09:40.179 --> 00:09:42.980 little prelude is overshadowing the massive structural 00:09:42.980 --> 00:09:45.379 innovations he was trying to achieve. It's the 00:09:45.379 --> 00:09:48.340 classic curse of the creator. Your most popular 00:09:48.340 --> 00:09:50.440 work is rarely the one you consider your most 00:09:50.440 --> 00:09:53.080 significant. So true. But as we strip away the 00:09:53.080 --> 00:09:55.320 moonlight imagery and focus on that despairing 00:09:55.320 --> 00:09:59.419 C -sharp minor key, we find some truly wild alternative 00:09:59.419 --> 00:10:02.100 theories about what inspired this gloomy first 00:10:02.100 --> 00:10:05.299 movement. The renowned pianist Edwin Fischer 00:10:05.299 --> 00:10:07.720 put forward a fascinating theory in his book 00:10:07.720 --> 00:10:09.879 on Beethoven's sonatas. Wait, you mean the murder 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:11.879 scene theory? Yes. Because when I read this in 00:10:11.879 --> 00:10:14.460 the notes, I had to pause. How do we get from 00:10:14.460 --> 00:10:17.059 a quiet, delicate piano piece to a murder scene 00:10:17.059 --> 00:10:19.299 that sounds like a massive stretch? It sounds 00:10:19.299 --> 00:10:22.460 totally improbable until you look at the musical 00:10:22.460 --> 00:10:25.370 evidence Fischer uncovered. Fischer claimed to 00:10:25.370 --> 00:10:27.529 have found sketches in the Vienna archives showing 00:10:27.529 --> 00:10:30.629 Beethoven handwriting a few lines of music from 00:10:30.629 --> 00:10:33.649 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni. 00:10:33.769 --> 00:10:37.549 Specifically, the scene right after the character 00:10:37.549 --> 00:10:41.149 of the commendatory is murdered in a duel. Fischer 00:10:41.149 --> 00:10:43.830 noted that Mozart's music for that dark, tragic 00:10:43.830 --> 00:10:47.429 scene shares the exact same characteristic triplet 00:10:47.429 --> 00:10:50.309 rhythm found in Beethoven's first movement. Furthermore, 00:10:50.929 --> 00:10:53.210 Beethoven had transposed Mozart's music into 00:10:53.210 --> 00:10:56.129 C sharp minor, the exact key of this sonata. 00:10:56.210 --> 00:10:58.169 So Fischer concludes that there is absolutely 00:10:58.169 --> 00:11:01.450 no romantic lake or moonlight involved. It is, 00:11:01.490 --> 00:11:04.570 in fact, a solemn dirge inspired by the musical 00:11:04.570 --> 00:11:06.990 aftermath of a murder. Listening to that rolling 00:11:06.990 --> 00:11:09.370 triplet pattern with a murder in mind completely 00:11:09.370 --> 00:11:11.590 changes the vibe. You hear the dread instead 00:11:11.590 --> 00:11:13.830 of the romance. It shifts the perspective entirely. 00:11:14.320 --> 00:11:16.360 But we have to move on, because after this heavy, 00:11:16.480 --> 00:11:19.080 potentially murder -inspired prelude, we get 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:21.340 to the second movement, the allegretto, and this 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:23.960 feels like a sudden jolt into a different reality. 00:11:24.100 --> 00:11:26.200 It really does. It's written in D -flat major, 00:11:26.480 --> 00:11:28.340 shifting the feel to something much lighter, 00:11:28.460 --> 00:11:30.639 and it's in triple time, which gives it a sort 00:11:30.639 --> 00:11:34.059 of gentle, waltz -like rhythm. It acts as a very 00:11:34.059 --> 00:11:37.700 short, cheerful palate cleanser. The contrast 00:11:37.700 --> 00:11:40.590 is startling. The composer Franz Liszt provided 00:11:40.590 --> 00:11:42.690 what is arguably the most perfect description 00:11:42.690 --> 00:11:45.730 of this second movement ever put to paper. He 00:11:45.730 --> 00:11:48.649 called it a flower between two abysses, or depending 00:11:48.649 --> 00:11:51.029 on the translation, two chasms. A flower between 00:11:51.029 --> 00:11:53.529 two abysses. That's beautiful. It really captures 00:11:53.529 --> 00:11:55.850 just how delicate and painfully short -lived 00:11:55.850 --> 00:11:58.549 this cheerful movement is before you plunge back 00:11:58.549 --> 00:12:00.649 into the darkness. Because that third movement 00:12:00.649 --> 00:12:03.929 is an absolute beast, the presto agitato. We 00:12:03.929 --> 00:12:05.730 talked about Beethoven's end -weighted trajectory 00:12:05.730 --> 00:12:07.629 and holding back the fire. This is the fire. 00:12:08.009 --> 00:12:10.750 If the first movement is a gloomy prelude, the 00:12:10.750 --> 00:12:13.190 finale is a stormy, out -of -control explosion. 00:12:13.549 --> 00:12:16.110 It is fiercely demanding for the pianist, full 00:12:16.110 --> 00:12:18.990 of fast, broken chords arpeggios that require 00:12:18.990 --> 00:12:22.669 extreme finger dexterity, and it has these heavy, 00:12:22.750 --> 00:12:25.710 intensely accented notes called sforzandos. The 00:12:25.710 --> 00:12:28.149 player just relentlessly pounds the keys. It 00:12:28.149 --> 00:12:31.230 demands an incredible amount of sheer athleticism 00:12:31.230 --> 00:12:34.220 and stamina. Charles Rosen, the late pianist 00:12:34.220 --> 00:12:36.620 and writer, noted that this movement is Beethoven's 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:39.320 most unbridled representation of emotion. Yeah. 00:12:39.519 --> 00:12:43.419 He wrote, even today, 200 years later, its ferocity 00:12:43.419 --> 00:12:46.100 is astonishing. How does Beethoven achieve that 00:12:46.100 --> 00:12:48.500 level of ferocity acoustically? Because looking 00:12:48.500 --> 00:12:50.860 at the sheet music, it's not actually all marked 00:12:50.860 --> 00:12:53.679 to be played at maximum volume. That is the genius 00:12:53.679 --> 00:12:56.200 of his acoustic illusion. Beethoven strategically 00:12:56.200 --> 00:12:59.799 places just a few very loud fortissimo passages 00:12:59.799 --> 00:13:02.539 amongst these heavily accented but otherwise 00:13:02.539 --> 00:13:05.399 quieter notes. Ah, I see. By contrasting sudden 00:13:05.399 --> 00:13:07.820 explosive bursts against the rapid churning background, 00:13:08.059 --> 00:13:10.539 he creates the illusion of a massive, overwhelming 00:13:10.539 --> 00:13:13.559 wall of sound. The listener's ear perceives the 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:16.039 whole movement as violently loud, even though 00:13:16.039 --> 00:13:18.059 the performer is carefully modulating their touch. 00:13:18.179 --> 00:13:20.779 It completely overwhelms the senses. That is 00:13:20.779 --> 00:13:23.879 so clever. And speaking of the performer's touch, 00:13:24.100 --> 00:13:27.240 we have to talk about a massive technical mystery 00:13:27.240 --> 00:13:29.679 hidden right in the sheet music of the first 00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:32.580 movement. I think you should lead this one, because 00:13:32.580 --> 00:13:35.799 the instruction Beethoven wrote is wild. He wrote 00:13:35.799 --> 00:13:39.679 a specific phrase in Italian senza sordino. Yes. 00:13:40.090 --> 00:13:43.090 Senza Sardino translates to without dampers. 00:13:43.870 --> 00:13:46.389 Beethoven was explicitly instructing the pianist 00:13:46.389 --> 00:13:49.250 to hold down the sustained pedal for the entire 00:13:49.250 --> 00:13:51.470 duration of the first movement. The whole time. 00:13:51.669 --> 00:13:53.970 Never lift it. This raises an important question 00:13:53.970 --> 00:13:56.149 about the instrument itself, especially for anyone 00:13:56.149 --> 00:13:58.289 who has ever touched a modern piano. Oh, absolutely. 00:13:58.610 --> 00:14:01.090 If you press the right pedal down on a modern 00:14:01.090 --> 00:14:04.269 Steinway or Yamaha and just leave it there while 00:14:04.269 --> 00:14:06.269 playing changing chords for five minutes, you 00:14:06.269 --> 00:14:08.669 will create an absolute muddy, dissonant mess 00:14:08.669 --> 00:14:11.529 of sound. The notes will bleed into each other 00:14:11.529 --> 00:14:13.730 horribly. It would sound like a nightmare. So 00:14:13.730 --> 00:14:15.889 why did a genius composer write an instruction 00:14:15.889 --> 00:14:18.850 that seemingly ruins his own piece? Because of 00:14:18.850 --> 00:14:21.629 the mechanical realities of the year 1801. Right. 00:14:21.750 --> 00:14:24.250 The early 19th century pianos were very different 00:14:24.250 --> 00:14:26.370 beasts than what we play today. They had a much 00:14:26.370 --> 00:14:29.009 shorter sustained time. The vibration of the 00:14:29.009 --> 00:14:32.190 strings simply died away faster. So they naturally 00:14:32.190 --> 00:14:35.610 faded out. Exactly. So on Beethoven's instrument. 00:14:36.250 --> 00:14:39.549 Holding the pedal down created a beautiful, delicate, 00:14:39.710 --> 00:14:43.149 ghostly wash of sound. The notes faded before 00:14:43.149 --> 00:14:45.830 they could turn into mud. But the modern piano 00:14:45.830 --> 00:14:47.710 has been engineered over centuries to project 00:14:47.710 --> 00:14:50.970 sound into massive concert halls, holding notes 00:14:50.970 --> 00:14:53.809 seemingly forever. So modern performers are faced 00:14:53.809 --> 00:14:56.450 with a real dilemma. Do you follow the composer's 00:14:56.450 --> 00:14:58.970 explicit written instructions, or do you adapt 00:14:58.970 --> 00:15:01.029 to the massive machine sitting in front of you? 00:15:01.250 --> 00:15:03.610 Performers have developed a few clever workarounds. 00:15:04.039 --> 00:15:06.440 The simplest option is to just ignore the strict 00:15:06.440 --> 00:15:09.059 instruction entirely. You just change the pedal 00:15:09.059 --> 00:15:11.340 whenever the harmony changes to keep the sound 00:15:11.340 --> 00:15:13.799 clean. Which makes sense. You see this advised 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:16.100 in a lot of modern sheet music editions, like 00:15:16.100 --> 00:15:19.159 the Ricordi edition. But some pianists desperately 00:15:19.159 --> 00:15:22.029 want to honor that original blurry intent. So 00:15:22.029 --> 00:15:23.909 they use a technique called half pedaling. Half 00:15:23.909 --> 00:15:25.830 pedaling? Yeah, where you only push the pedal 00:15:25.830 --> 00:15:28.549 down partway, trying to manually simulate that 00:15:28.549 --> 00:15:31.389 shorter, older sustain. There is also a really 00:15:31.389 --> 00:15:34.110 wild mechanical hack suggested by the pianist 00:15:34.110 --> 00:15:37.590 Joseph Banowetz using the middle pedal, the sostenuto 00:15:37.590 --> 00:15:39.669 pedal. Oh, Banowetz's solution is brilliant. 00:15:39.990 --> 00:15:42.230 He suggests that before you even start playing 00:15:42.230 --> 00:15:44.929 the piece, you silently press down the lowest 00:15:44.929 --> 00:15:47.830 bass keys on the piano. Silently? Yes. You don't 00:15:47.830 --> 00:15:50.070 strike them to make a sound. You just gently 00:15:50.070 --> 00:15:52.659 press them to lift. their dampers off the strings. 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:55.399 Then you catch those dampers with the middle 00:15:55.399 --> 00:15:57.820 sasnudo pedal and lock it down for the whole 00:15:57.820 --> 00:16:00.500 movement. So basically they are tricking the 00:16:00.500 --> 00:16:03.000 modern piano into acting like a 200 -year -old 00:16:03.000 --> 00:16:05.759 instrument. By keeping only the deep bass strings 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:08.899 open, they get that spooky echo to ring out sympathetically 00:16:08.899 --> 00:16:11.259 without turning all the higher changing notes 00:16:11.259 --> 00:16:14.299 into a muddy mess. Precisely. It allows you to 00:16:14.299 --> 00:16:17.000 pedal cleanly with your other foot while maintaining 00:16:17.000 --> 00:16:20.210 a subtle continuous hum in the background. It's 00:16:20.210 --> 00:16:22.850 a fascinating way to recreate a historical acoustic 00:16:22.850 --> 00:16:25.990 environment on a modern machine. Or, of course, 00:16:26.070 --> 00:16:27.649 you could just track down an authentic historical 00:16:27.649 --> 00:16:30.450 fortepiano from the 1800s and play it exactly 00:16:30.450 --> 00:16:32.330 as written. Good luck fitting that in your living 00:16:32.330 --> 00:16:35.029 room. Right. It's amazing how much thought, history, 00:16:35.169 --> 00:16:37.309 and mechanical engineering goes into just pressing 00:16:37.309 --> 00:16:41.159 the first key. But all of this innovation, the 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:43.340 rule -breaking structure, the intense emotion, 00:16:43.720 --> 00:16:47.059 the peddling experiments, it left an indelible 00:16:47.059 --> 00:16:50.059 mark on the musical world. The DNA of the sonata 00:16:50.059 --> 00:16:52.840 infected the composers who came after him. Oh, 00:16:53.100 --> 00:16:56.120 without a doubt. You can see that influence deeply 00:16:56.120 --> 00:16:59.120 embedded in the works of Frédéric Chopin. There 00:16:59.120 --> 00:17:01.559 is a very compelling analytical theory put forward 00:17:01.559 --> 00:17:04.920 by the music theorist Ernst Oster regarding Chopin's 00:17:04.920 --> 00:17:07.160 famous fantasy impromptu. I love this theory. 00:17:07.549 --> 00:17:09.910 Oster argues that Chopin's piece isn't just loosely 00:17:09.910 --> 00:17:12.490 inspired by the Moonlight Sonata. It is actually 00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:15.490 a secret, deliberate tribute to Beethoven. A 00:17:15.490 --> 00:17:18.190 musical homage hither in plain sight. Oster points 00:17:18.190 --> 00:17:20.869 out that the fantasy impromptu completely mimics 00:17:20.869 --> 00:17:23.329 the key relationships of Beethoven's three movements. 00:17:23.849 --> 00:17:26.630 Chopin borrows the chord structures and even 00:17:26.630 --> 00:17:29.789 shares some specific melodic passages, weaving 00:17:29.789 --> 00:17:32.539 them right into his own work. It's incredible. 00:17:32.779 --> 00:17:34.880 Oster wrote something beautiful about this dynamic. 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:37.400 He said that with this piece, we can essentially 00:17:37.400 --> 00:17:40.640 see Chopin acting as our teacher. It's as if 00:17:40.640 --> 00:17:42.859 Chopin is pointing to Beethoven's score and saying, 00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:46.059 look here, this is great. Take heed of this example. 00:17:46.359 --> 00:17:48.220 That's a great way to put it. Oster notes it's 00:17:48.220 --> 00:17:51.299 a rare instance where one genius tells us exactly 00:17:51.299 --> 00:17:53.400 what he values in the work of another genius, 00:17:53.500 --> 00:17:55.660 communicating entirely through the language of 00:17:55.660 --> 00:17:58.640 composition. I love that idea of composers speaking 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.180 to each other across decades through sheet music. 00:18:01.920 --> 00:18:04.000 And Chopin wasn't the only one paying tribute. 00:18:04.299 --> 00:18:06.599 Karl Bohm took a much more literal approach. 00:18:06.920 --> 00:18:09.539 Oh, a backing track guy. Yes. He wrote a piece 00:18:09.539 --> 00:18:11.819 called Meditation, where he just layered a brand 00:18:11.819 --> 00:18:15.200 new violin melody right over the top of Beethoven's 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:17.319 unaltered first movement. He just used it as 00:18:17.319 --> 00:18:20.059 a backing track. That is bold. And then, jumping 00:18:20.059 --> 00:18:22.519 way forward into the 20th century, we have Dmitri 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:26.579 Shostakovich. In 1975, Shostakovich wrote his 00:18:26.579 --> 00:18:29.799 very last composition, the Viola Sonata. And 00:18:29.799 --> 00:18:31.720 in the third movement of that piece, he quotes 00:18:31.720 --> 00:18:34.119 fragments of Beethoven's first movement directly. 00:18:34.460 --> 00:18:37.680 Wow. He even titled that movement an Adagio in 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:40.400 memory of Beethoven. It demonstrates the sheer 00:18:40.400 --> 00:18:43.619 gravitational pull of this sonata. It pulls other 00:18:43.619 --> 00:18:46.140 towering artists into its orbit, spanning from 00:18:46.140 --> 00:18:48.960 Chopin in the 1830s all the way to Shostakovich 00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.759 in the 1970s. So what does this all mean? We 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.059 started out talking about a gentle, moonlit boat 00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:57.900 ride on a Swiss lake, but what we actually found 00:18:57.900 --> 00:19:01.339 in our notes today is a rebellious, potentially 00:19:01.339 --> 00:19:04.700 murder -inspired musical experiment. A very different 00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:06.680 picture. It's a piece that pushed the physical 00:19:06.680 --> 00:19:09.180 limits of the piano's mechanics completely throughout 00:19:09.180 --> 00:19:11.200 the rulebook for how a sonata should be structured 00:19:11.200 --> 00:19:13.980 and managed to thoroughly frustrate its own creator 00:19:13.980 --> 00:19:16.839 by being too popular for its own good. If we 00:19:16.839 --> 00:19:18.740 connect this to the bigger picture, it reminds 00:19:18.740 --> 00:19:20.940 us that knowledge is most valuable. when we're 00:19:20.940 --> 00:19:22.579 willing to question our deepest assumptions. 00:19:23.119 --> 00:19:26.400 We all thought we knew this piece of music, but 00:19:26.400 --> 00:19:29.299 art is a living, breathing thing. A piece of 00:19:29.299 --> 00:19:32.420 art inherently belongs to the creator when it 00:19:32.420 --> 00:19:35.380 is written, but its legacy, how it is named, 00:19:35.619 --> 00:19:38.059 how it is felt, how it is ultimately remembered, 00:19:38.299 --> 00:19:41.759 belongs to the audience, even if that audience 00:19:41.759 --> 00:19:44.960 is just a poet with a vivid imagination and a 00:19:44.960 --> 00:19:47.180 knack for branding. And that leaves us with a 00:19:47.180 --> 00:19:49.619 final lingering question to mull over as we wrap 00:19:49.619 --> 00:19:53.279 up today's deep dive. If a single critic's random 00:19:53.279 --> 00:19:55.759 poetic review about Moonlight can completely 00:19:55.759 --> 00:19:58.700 alter how millions of people emotionally experience 00:19:58.700 --> 00:20:01.980 a piece of music for over two centuries, what 00:20:01.980 --> 00:20:04.579 other famous works of art, literature, or history 00:20:04.579 --> 00:20:07.019 are you experiencing through the lens of a completely 00:20:07.019 --> 00:20:09.279 fabricated label? It really makes you wonder. 00:20:09.519 --> 00:20:11.599 When you look at a famous painting or read a 00:20:11.599 --> 00:20:14.180 classic novel, are you truly feeling the artist's 00:20:14.180 --> 00:20:16.339 original intention? have you just fallen for 00:20:16.339 --> 00:20:18.839 a 200 year old marketing gimmick. It's something 00:20:18.839 --> 00:20:20.420 to think about next time you put on your headphones. 00:20:21.039 --> 00:20:22.720 Thank you so much for joining us on this deep 00:20:22.720 --> 00:20:25.599 dive. Stay curious, keep questioning, and we 00:20:25.599 --> 00:20:27.339 will catch you next time as we keep learning 00:20:27.339 --> 00:20:27.680 together.