Marios Papadopoulos, the pianist on this recording, is the founder and Music Director of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.
Composition History
The 'Marcia funebre' (Funeral March) in Beethoven's Op. 26 is the only piano movement he ever rescored, orchestrating it 14 years later for the drama Leonore Prohaska.
Compositional Technique
Beethoven's Sonata in A flat major, Op. 26, is unusual because none of its four movements uses sonata form.
Composition History
Beethoven's 'Moonlight' Sonata bears a close relationship to Mozart's music in Don Giovanni marking the Commendatore's death, with Beethoven having copied and transposed that passage.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Beethoven explicitly termed both his Op. 27 Sonatas 'in the style of a fantasy,' marking his first attempts to shift the balance of music within a single structure from the first to the last movement.
Cultural Impact
The 'Moonlight' sobriquet for Beethoven's Sonata Op. 27 No. 2 was not authorized by the composer; it was coined by author Ludwig Rellstab in 1832.
Compositional Technique
In both Op. 27 sonatas, Beethoven instructed that there should be no breaks between movements, so each work runs as a cohesive whole.
