Piano Sonata No. 14

Had it not been that Christian faith forbade it, I should have perished by my own hands.

i prayed for strength to live till my work should be accomplished and then i hoped that death would claim me true and staunch friends i always had but none more true than my friend and patron the cardinal archduke rudolph i owed him thanks and gratitude for his unvarying generosity when i was offered the position of court kapellmeister to the king of westphalia jerome bonaparte it was the archduke who made it possible for me to refuse an offer so tempting from a pecuniary standpoint by joining with two other noblemen in promising to grant me an income which should place me above want and leave me free to work in the best interests of art and though from different causes the income was sadly diminished the archduke rudolph's share was always promptly paid i was always in a worry over money matters incompetent servants and the petty details that clip the wings of genius you see i had no woman to look after me i never married one woman i loved ardently passionately but she was not for me it was my fate to live alone yet one sacred charge was left to me an invalid brother for whom i had been able to provide during his long and lingering disease dying left to my care his little son the child grew dear as a son to me and dear as a son he remained though his levity and wild behaviour when he came to man's estate often gave me much pain i asked cerny to teach my nephew the piano when karl was quite a lad and possibly the advice i sent to that fine teacher may be interesting now i urged cerny after the pupil was able to play with tolerable correctness to look first to his execution not to stop him after every little mistake made while playing a piece but to wait and point them out at the finish as thus the musical idea was not sacrificed and the pupil did not run the risk of being mechanical cerny took my advice as he once took a scolding i gave him with becoming meekness i wonder if i ever sent him one of my humorous visiting cards i cannot now remember the card had written upon it wir bleiben die alten we are the same as ever and on reversing it two asses heads stared the receiver in the face my works are many and varied i wrote many sonatas some for the piano only some for piano with obbligato for violin or cello perhaps some of you play my moonlight sonata or its companion think how the deaf composer watched the moonlight filtering through the trees and silvery grassy bank and tiny rivulet till he turned his thoughts into a tone poem do you know my symphonies how the world has quarrelled over the ninth the world of my day was divided in their judgment of it some scoffing and laughing some saying that the work was the greatest musical achievement of the time in that symphony i rose beyond all my other works and pointed toward the path which has been made so glorious by my godson in art richard wagner it was in eighteen hundred when only thirty years old that i became totally deaf my deafness was so extraordinary that in the theatre i was obliged to lean close up against the orchestra in order to hear and a little way off i could hear none of the high notes of the instruments or singers in eighteen o one when i was so desperately in love with giulia guicciardi i wrote the most glorious love-song ever composed adelaide my battle symphony was greatly liked in my own day as the stirring events it transcribed had only just taken place i wrote some cantatas an oratorio the mount of olives and a grand mass which was specially dedicated to my friend and benefactor the archduke rudolph only one grand opera is mine fidelio which was at first a failure being presented only three times but when after the lapse of years it was revived with the libretto altered and much of the music rewritten it was a grand success in its new dress i wished to write another opera but could not find a subject that altogether pleased me trios quintets sextets and other works were always teeming in my busy brain as my muse spoke in clearer and clearer tones and as my harmonies grew more varied and different from all that had been before those could be found who affirmed that my deafness was the cause of my strange and powerful harmonies absurd as if the musician's brain were distorted because his ears no longer admitted the sounds of outward life look upon my life was ever tragedy more sad fate more blighting than mine it is a terrible misfortune for any one to be stricken with deafness how much more terrible for a musician never to hear played the divine melodies with which his brain is crammed that was my fate yet the ears of my soul were open to celestial harmonies and my greatest works were achieved after my affliction had come upon me once i said to an enthusiastic artistic soul with whom i had some converse music is the only spiritual entrance to a higher world of knowledge and feeling so it was but natural that i should uplift my soul to the divine essence and should struggle to produce in my compositions the loftiness and tragic destiny of man i am growing very prosy it was always my way when thinking or speaking of my art to soar into cloudland i do not understand speaking to the young and i fear i have wearied you as i have already told you i was a queer fellow i will now tell you some things about myself which will convince you of this fact the greatest confusion reigned in my home though i then thought that i was a very marvel of order and neatness in thinking of that time i have since changed my opinion and acknowledged that i did not know the first principles of neatness books and music were scattered everywhere the remnants of a meal bottles with and without beer were to be seen in that room called my study on my desk were hasty sketches of quartets on my pianoforte some scribbled notes for a symphony perhaps proof-sheets business and friendly letters strewed the floor what confusion it was past all description sometimes i could not find what i wanted and then i would abuse my servants declaring that they were all rogues and in league to annoy me Once a copied score of a mass was missing.

After searching everywhere for it, I found it in the kitchen, where the cook had put it to practical use.

Housekeepers were a constant source of annoyance to me, and I once tried to do without them altogether.

the Russian monologue, the mic drop moment of episode five, because I remember, Nicole, when we were talking, we were talking about this after, because we, at this point, had read the books, did not think we would ever get to hear, no less than, like, the three or four pages, however long the monologue was, never thought we'd get to hear it, because it's not something that's written out in the books.

And What Jacob just wrote was profoundly beautiful with Moonlight Sonata underneath it, y'all.

Profoundly beautiful.

I can't.

No, no.

Uh, but he does play Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" beautifully.

Well, that's, by default, that's, uh-

Y- yes.

So just fun little Easter eggs that obviously couldn't make it in the movie, but made it that part or part of the game.

The tune that Wesker plays on the piano is Moonlight Sonata.

The same piece is played in the video game Resident Evil.

Couldn't make it in the opening credits, but they do have it here in the movie still.

But the program is generally pretty good, like, as a program itself.

I mean, in comparison to this short program that Vladislav Dikidji did, it was like, oh, my God, he might as well have been skating a Moonlight Sonata.

Dikidji's Robot Amelie, I was actually upset.

I don't know why the robot was necessary.

Interesting.

And then there's the Moonlight Sonata by... uh

oh

yeah yeah by uh beethoven too so that's one of his other most famous piano pieces so uh yeah okay that's kind of good it's got some fairy dust for sure then this song with all these little stories and all these kind of things that kind of happen make you go oh okay this is how a number three hit song happens um yeah it is a great chorus and it's really so simple and it's just got that great it's for me What's great about it is it's 1970s sounding, but it isn't really dated.

That's a bit, remember.

Do you think they pre-gamed before, like, you know, Moonlight Sonata? Like, dude, Mozart's about to drop a new movement.

Chug that wine, dude.

Let's do it.

So you know that this is a podcast for parents of piano students, and I wonder if there, other than passing down these songs that they, your mom had learned by ear in the interactions with your grandparents and so on, were there any other things that stand out in the way that your parents influenced you and your love of music and your musicianship even to now? Y- Have any stories about that?

Well, definitely I still remember the first time I heard Moonlight Sonata.

Uh, my mom took me to a live concert with a, a concert pianist, and I heard, I think I was probably 12, I heard Lu- Moonlight Sonata and was absolutely be- ... amazed [laughs] and inspired.

[laughs]

Yes.

So I think being taken to live, to see live concerts is an amazing thing.

I, I wasn't taken to many, but that Moonlight Sonata, I, I feel like it changed my life.

It changed the direction.