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About the piece

A sonata is a piece of music usually written for one or two instruments. The composer Ludwig van Beethoven wrote lots of them and, in 1801, he finished his 14th sonata for the piano. Years later, after hearing that sonata, one writer said that some of the music reminded him of moonlight sparkling on the water of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland.

So before long everyone began to call this piece the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata. Poor old Beethoven couldn’t disagree because he’d died a few years earlier.

Beethoven was born in 1770, and so this year is the 250th anniversary of his birth! Throughout his life he would sit at his piano, composing exciting, wild and elegant music. Often old food and dirty washing would start piling up everywhere around him. When Beethoven was concentrating on making his music, nothing else mattered.

When you listen to the delicate, unfolding melody (or tune) in Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, you too may imagine the light of the moon shining on the waves of a lake. 

But you might also imagine something very different. 

The most important thing to remember when we listen to music is that there are no wrong or right answers. The same piece of music will make each one of us feel and imagine different things.

That’s what makes music so incredible. And Beethoven would definitely have agreed with that!

So see where your imagination takes you, as you watch and listen to this clip of the brilliant pianist Mitsuko Uchida performing the opening of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata at this year’s Proms:

_{(Images: Joakim Honkasalo/Kym Mackinnon)}