UNIQUE POWER IN MUSIC

I felt so nostalgic today, so I sat down at the piano and played nostalgic compositions, and ending my version of solo concert with the rendition of the most nostalgic piano piece. It isn't full moon, but I played it anyway.

To know Beethoven is to know his most familiar sonata, the Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Quasi Una Fantasia, Opus 27, No. 2, composed in 1802, popularly known as "Moonlight Sonata." Although it being a great misfortune and aggravation, Beethoven's greatest work was accomplished after he had become deaf. His genius and geniality as an artist and his noble generosity won the hearts of the music lovers and caused them to condone his freaks. His entire life, of course, was confined to music as an orchestra leader, pianist and composer, and his compositions are without question the finest and greatest. He is still recognized as the greatest composer of instrumental music of all times, and even in vocal music his "Fidelio" and "Missa Solemnis" are creations of unique power. His works comprise 138 opus-numbers and about 70 unnumbered compositions.

GREAT PIANISTS - 2

Many composers have written “musical puzzles,” compositions that were amusing to them, if not to their listeners, who probably did not recognize them as such. Haydn’s Piano Sonata in A, for example, contains a minuet

“al rovescio” (in reverse), in which the second part is exactly the same as the first, but played in reverse.

Similarly, in one section of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, the music goes forward to a midway point and then works its way exactly backward.

Paul Hindemith has gone them one better. In Ludus Tonalis, the Postlude is, with the addition of a final chord, the same as the Prelude, but the score is played upside down and backward.