Editing Piano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven) (section)

==Names==
The first edition of the score is headed ''Sonata quasi una fantasia'' ("sonata almost a fantasy"), the same title as that of its companion piece, [[Piano Sonata No. 13 (Beethoven)|Op. 27, No. 1]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?id=&template=dokseite_digitales_archiv_en&_eid=&_ug=&_werkid=27&_dokid=T00011830&_opus=op.%2027&_mid=&suchparameter=&_sucheinstieg=&_seite=1 |title=Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonate für Klavier (cis-Moll) op. 27, 2 (Sonata quasi una fantasia), Cappi, 879 |publisher= [[Beethoven House|Beethovenhaus]] |access-date=January 12, 2012}}</ref> [[Grove Music Online]] translates the Italian title as "[[Sonata#The sonata in the Classical period|sonata]] in the manner of a [[fantasia (music)|fantasy]]".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/22660|title=Quasi|encyclopedia=[[Grove Music Online]]|access-date=January 7, 2012}}</ref> "The subtitle reminds listeners that the piece, although technically a sonata, is suggestive of a free-flowing, improvised [[fantasia (music)|fantasia]]."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Schwarm|first1=Betsy|title=Moonlight Sonata|url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/Moonlight-Sonata|website=[[Encyclopædia Britannica]]|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref>

Many sources say that the nickname ''Moonlight Sonata'' arose after the German music critic and poet [[Ludwig Rellstab]] likened the effect of the first movement to that of moonlight shining upon [[Lake Lucerne]].<ref>{{cite book
| last =Beethoven
| first =Ludwig van
| title =Beethoven: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in His Own Words
| publisher =1st World Publishing
| year =2004
| page =47
| isbn =978-1-59540-149-6 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Lenz |first=Wilhelm von |title=Beethoven et ses trois styles |year=1852 |volume=1 |location=St Petersburg |page=225 |language=fr |author-link=Wilhelm von Lenz}}</ref> This comes from the musicologist [[Wilhelm von Lenz]], who wrote in 1852: "Rellstab compares this work to a boat, visiting, by moonlight, the remote parts of [[Lake Lucerne]] in Switzerland. The soubriquet ''Mondscheinsonate'', which twenty years ago made connoisseurs cry out in Germany, has no other origin."<ref name=":2">{{cite web | url=https://crumey.co.uk/beethoven.html#moonlight | title=Beethoven Bookshelf }}</ref><ref name="Maconie 2010 279">{{Cite book |last=Maconie |first=Robin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BJNWdXBWbckC |title=Musicologia: Musical Knowledge from Plato to John Cage |date=2010 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=978-0-8108-7696-5 |page=279 |language=en}}</ref> Taken literally, "twenty years" would mean the nickname had to have started after Beethoven's death. In fact Rellstab made his comment about the sonata's first movement in a story called ''Theodor'' that he published in 1824: "The lake reposes in twilit moon-shimmer [''Mondenschimmer''], muffled waves strike the dark shore; gloomy wooded mountains rise and close off the holy place from the world; ghostly swans glide with whispering rustles on the tide, and an Aeolian harp sends down mysterious tones of lovelorn yearning from the ruins."<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rellstab |first=Ludwig |date=1824 |title=Theodor. Eine musikalische Skizze |url=https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/en/view/bsb10528063?page=292,293 |journal=Berliner allgemeine musikalische Zeitung |language=de |page=274}}</ref> Rellstab made no mention of Lake Lucerne, which seems to have been Lenz's own addition. Rellstab met Beethoven in 1825,<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.completebeethoven.com/day344.html | title=The Complete Beethoven: Day 344 }}</ref> making it theoretically possible for Beethoven to have known of the moonlight comparison, though the nickname may not have arisen until later.

By the late 1830s, the name "''Mondscheinsonate''" was being used in German publications<ref>See. e.g., [https://books.google.com/books?id=dSFDAAAAcAAJ&dq=mondscheinsonate&pg=PA41 ''Allgemeiner musikalischer Anzeiger'']. Vol. 9, No. 11, Tobias Haslinger, Vienna, 1837, p. 41.</ref> and "Moonlight Sonata" in English<ref>See, e.g., [[Ignaz Moscheles]], ed. [https://archive.org/details/lifeofbeethoveni02schi/page/109 <!-- quote="moonlight sonata". --> ''The Life of Beethoven''.] Henry Colburn pub., vol. II, 1841, p. 109.</ref> publications. Later in the nineteenth century, the sonata was universally known by that name.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=XigOAAAAQAAJ&dq=%22moonlight+sonata%22+universally&pg=PA60 ''Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume'']. H. K. F. Gatty, ed., George Bell & Sons, London, 1879, p. 60.</ref>

Many critics have objected to the subjective, romantic nature of the title "Moonlight", which has at times been called "a misleading approach to a movement with almost the character of a funeral march"<ref>[[Michael Kennedy (music critic)|Kennedy, Michael]]. [https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Dictionary-Music-Michael-Kennedy/dp/0198691629#reader_0198691629 "Moonlight Sonata"], from ''Oxford Dictionary of Music'' 2nd edition. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2006 rev., p. 589.</ref> and "absurd".<ref>[[wikisource:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Moonlight Sonata|"Moonlight Sonata"]], from ''Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians''. J.A. Fuller Maitland, ed., Macmillan and Co., London, 1900, p. 360.</ref> Other critics have approved of the sobriquet, finding it evocative<ref>Dubal, David. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8698CZGx1ZQC&dq=%22moonlight+sonata%22+evocative&pg=PA411 ''The Art of the Piano'']. Amadeus Press, 2004, p. 411.</ref> or in line with their own interpretation of the work.<ref>See, e.g., Wilkinson, Charles W. [https://archive.org/details/wellknownpianos00wilkgoog/page/n34 <!-- pg=31 quote="moonlight sonata" title. --> ''Well-known Piano Solos: How to Play Them'']. Theo. Presser Co., Philadelphia, 1915, p. 31.</ref> [[Gramophone (magazine)|''Gramophone'']] founder [[Compton Mackenzie]] found the title "harmless", remarking that "it is silly for austere critics to work themselves up into a state of almost hysterical rage with poor Rellstab", and adding, "what these austere critics fail to grasp is that unless the general public had responded to the suggestion of moonlight in this music Rellstab's remark would long ago have been forgotten."<ref>Mackenzie, Compton. [https://archive.today/20120801073308/http://www.gramophone.net/Issue/Page/August%201940/1/736783/EDITORIAL%23header-logo "The Beethoven Piano Sonatas"], from ''The Gramophone'', Aug. 1940, p. 5.</ref> [[Donald Tovey|Donald Francis Tovey]] thought the title of ''Moonlight'' was appropriate for the first movement but not for the other two.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Beethoven |first=Ludwig van |title=Complete Pianoforte Sonatas, Volume II |date=1932 |publisher=Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music |isbn=978-1-85472-054-2 |editor-last=Tovey |editor-first=Donald Francis |editor-link=Donald Tovey |edition=Revised |location=London |page=50 |language=en |oclc=53258888 |author-link=Ludwig van Beethoven |editor-last2=Craxton |editor-first2=Harold |editor-link2=Harold Craxton}}</ref>

[[Carl Czerny]], Beethoven's pupil, described the first movement as "a ghost scene, where out of the far distance a plaintive ghostly voice sounds".<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Beethoven |first=Ludwig van |title=Sonata quasi una Fantasia für Pianoforte |publisher=[[Bärenreiter]] |year=2015 |editor-last=Del Mar |editor-first=Jonathan |editor-link=Jonathan Del Mar |location=Kassel |page=iii |language=en, de |translator-last=Schütz |translator-first=Gudula |ismn=979-0-006-55799-8 |editor-last2=Donat |editor-first2=Misha}}</ref>

[[Franz Liszt]] described the second movement as "a flower between two abysses".<ref name=":2"/>