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Background History of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”
1. Composition and Title:
Ludwig van Beethoven composed the Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27,
No. 2 in 1801 and published it in 1802. The work is commonly known as the
Moonlight Sonata, a name given decades after Beethoven’s death by the German poet
and music critic Ludwig Rellstab. Rellstab compared the first movement’s dreamy
atmosphere to the moonlight reflecting on Lake Lucerne. However, Beethoven
himself never associated the piece with this imagery.
2. Dedication:
Beethoven dedicated the sonata to Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, a young
aristocratic woman who was one of his piano students. Some sources suggest that
Beethoven was romantically interested in her, but their social class differences made
marriage impossible.
3. Musical Structure:
The Moonlight Sonata is unique in that it does not follow the standard Classical
sonata form of a fast opening movement, a slow middle movement, and a fast finale.
Instead, Beethoven labeled it as a Sonata quasi una fantasia (Sonata in the manner of
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