Tips and advices for pianists to avoid common mistakes at piano.

WHEN a student comes to play to the artist with whom he desires to study, how often does he ask, when he has finished his performance Master, what I really want you to tell me is, whether I have any very serious faults in my playing? Serious faults in his playing! Poor fellow! He probably has several which he has not yet discovered himself, and which most likely no one has ever drawn his attention to. Read more

The first movement of the “Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig Van Beethoven consists of a haunting and beautiful melody, full of romance and pathos floating on a continuous stream of undulating harmony. The interpretation of it should be of the highest imagination, glowing with a quiet radiance of fantasy and feeling. The tone employed must be warm and melting in quality, imparting at the same time the mysterious resignation and the vague unrest of the music’s atmosphere.

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The Sonata in C sharp minor was a great favorite from the moment of its publication, and Beethoven jokingly even pretended to be annoyed about it, as he considered many of his other sonatas to be finer works musically; but still the “Moonlight Sonata” remains a warm favorite.

Probably the fact, technically, the lovely slow movement with which it commences is well within the reach of very moderate performers on the pianoforte may help to account for its extreme popularity over its fellows, since so many amateurs are able to derive pleasure from their own rendering of it.

Beethoven wrote thirty-two sonatas in all, of which certainly nearly half are still as beloved and admired as ever they were, and continue to form an absolutely essential part of the repertoire ofevery pianist. He brought the sonata form to its highest perfection, and, having found the models of his predecessors too stilted and formal for the wider expression of his thoughts, he made innovations of what in those days were considered the most daring kind, and improved upon the forms he found. Read more

I HAVE chosen the first movement of the Sonata in C sharp minor of Ludwig Van Beethoven, commonly known as the “Moonlight Sonata,” as the subject of my specimen lesson, because it is so universally beloved by all sorts and conditions of people, and is so well known. It is, therefore, one which all students of the pianoforte must learn. I will first give a short history of the Sonata, as this should also be of special interest to students.

The Sonata in C sharp minor, which was entitled by Beethoven himself “Quasi una Fantasia,” was one of two sonatas written in the year 1801 and published in March, 1802, and forming together Opus 27.

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