Beethoven: "Moonlight" Sonata mov. 3 (synthesized)

YouTube Uploaded by ScrollingMusic on Jun 25, 2011

"Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Sonata No. 14 in C# minor ("quasi una fantasia"), mov. 3

Composed in 1801, the "Moonlight" sonata is one of Beethoven's most famous works for piano. Beethoven included the "quasi una fantasia" ("almost a fantasy") phrase in the sonata's title because it does not follow the traditional fast-slow-fast structure of 3-movement sonatas. While the style of this third movement is typical of Beethoven's sonatas, the first movement is quiet and pensive. Fast arpeggios and chromatic runs make this movement one of Beethoven's most technically demanding piano compositions. It is also thought that this movement inspired Chopin's Fantaisie-Impromptu.

This synthesized rendition was created by mixing together two instruments from our Matlab synthesizer: guitar and a subtractive synthesis-based keyboard voice. Like an acoustic piano, the timbre of this mix changes with dynamic levels, along with the volume. The dynamics are also reflected in the "piano-roll" visualization, with blue notes being piano or pianissimo, green representing mezzo-piano and mezzo-forte, and red corresponding to forte/fortissimo. Both the audio and scrolling visualization were generated by our Matlab synthesizer from a MIDI file."