Little fantasia (quasi una sonata)

Performances: 4th March 2020, Amy Alcock (cor anglais) and Yang Su (piano)

Commissioned as part of the ‘Moonlit Variations’ Contemporary Music Venture concert, celebrating Beethoven’s 250th anniversary. The inspiration for all the pieces was the first movement of Beethoven’s hyper-famous “Moonlight” sonata.

This was an interesting little project to undertake just as I had finished my PhD work, where I had gotten deep into layers and referential-ness–the idea of the idea of the medieval–reinterpreting texts, and taking into account an audience’s background, or recognising how far I could not… Here the text was the Moonight Sonata–the music itself, and the memory of the music.

Programme note:

Beethoven’s Sonata No. 14 is subtitled “quasi una fantasia”; this is a fantasia that is a little like a sonata.  The piece is structured in four miniature movements: Energico, Mysterioso, Traurig, Adagio sostenuto.  Each movement approaches the famous first movement of the Moonlight sonata from a different angle, with various musical ideas either derived or directly quoted from Beethoven.

Yes, with about 5 minutes of time maximum to work with, I decided to write a piece in four movements.