Most people are familiar with Beethoven, yes? You know, the world's most revolutionary composer? Good, but how many people know that his famous "Moonlight Sonata" was completely improvised?
While I was researching harmonic structure for my Music Theory class, I came across a man who claimed that Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven's 3 part masterpiece of technicality and beauty was completely improvised and was just written as notated improvisation. I, in disbelief not only listened to what he had to say but researched for myself as well.
I went about reading several pages and articles only to come to no conclusion beyond a page or 2 and of course the guys word of mouth. I then took a look at the song itself and knowing how to go about improvising and go about harmonics and improvisation above certain progressions, it was rather clear to me at this point that the piece was most likely improvised.
But what comes from this information? Well, knowing Beethoven had been a pianist since he was a boy and a prodigy at that so it is apparent that his knowledge of chord structure and musical prowess would be beyond that of anyone alive at that point, let alone his immense creativity. On top of that if you look at the original score for the song it uses very typical patterns and the beginning part of the piece called Quasi Una Fantasia was used to cement the chord pattern at the beginning in order to do more with it.
It should also be noted that Moonlight Sonata had been written when his deafness slowly began coming into fruition. So it is possible that he could not here what he was playing, thus the simple chord structure. What this could mean is that many of his other famous pieces could have been improvised as well, which of course would be truly extraordinary.
The Video that Introduced it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYYGMI1UxU
While I was researching harmonic structure for my Music Theory class, I came across a man who claimed that Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven's 3 part masterpiece of technicality and beauty was completely improvised and was just written as notated improvisation. I, in disbelief not only listened to what he had to say but researched for myself as well.
I went about reading several pages and articles only to come to no conclusion beyond a page or 2 and of course the guys word of mouth. I then took a look at the song itself and knowing how to go about improvising and go about harmonics and improvisation above certain progressions, it was rather clear to me at this point that the piece was most likely improvised.
But what comes from this information? Well, knowing Beethoven had been a pianist since he was a boy and a prodigy at that so it is apparent that his knowledge of chord structure and musical prowess would be beyond that of anyone alive at that point, let alone his immense creativity. On top of that if you look at the original score for the song it uses very typical patterns and the beginning part of the piece called Quasi Una Fantasia was used to cement the chord pattern at the beginning in order to do more with it.
It should also be noted that Moonlight Sonata had been written when his deafness slowly began coming into fruition. So it is possible that he could not here what he was playing, thus the simple chord structure. What this could mean is that many of his other famous pieces could have been improvised as well, which of course would be truly extraordinary.
The Video that Introduced it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCYYGMI1UxU