Listening to Orpheus (5)

I love this piece, even though it is so popular and many times just mis-interpreted. The story of the “Moonlight Sonata” is a bittersweet one. Beethoven fell in love with one of his students – Giuletta Giuccardi. He wanted to marry her, but her father would not allow it. The unique quality of the moonlight sonata is it’s strong vibration – listen and feel  Beethoven’s heart, his longing and the piercing pain – about the loss of his hearing, and the loss of the woman he loved. In this sonata he is anticipating his own path into darkness and silence.

It appears that Daniel Barenboim is playing it at a slower pace to accentuate the vibration even more. Can you feel it ? Thats the sound of Orpheus singing…the passion beyond the grief.

This is from a movie about the origins of the moonlight sonata: