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You bring up some good points. I was just trying to ensure that the thread didn't get cluttered like last time it was active, but it's your call.

Now for the last time, let's choose a piece. How about Chopin's Sonata in B minor? (It's one of my personal favorite pieces. ) If not that, how about a Beethoven Sonata, maybe Opus 78?

Well, I'd think that Schubert and Beethoven would be the least complex, and Chopin, Liszt, and Rachmaninoff would be higher up the ladder, pulling farther away from convention.

This is wrong. It's not in the spirit of the thread.

Sometimes your humour completely escapes me!

And sometimes I escape it deliberately.

Polyphonist, my first reaction to your post was "Is this a joke?"

Then I concluded that, very sadly, it was not a joke.

What you call "clutter" we call "teaching." If you'd like a different style of thread, feel free to start it. I think you will find Pianist Corner a suitable board for brutally pared and focused analysis that takes no cognizance of teaching or trying to make a thread welcoming for people with a variety of experience.

If you don't like the way this thread has proceeded to date, you won't like the way it proceeds in the future.

I mentioned PMs to Valencia in case she felt too hesitant to post a question on the thread. I would encourage everyone with questions to feel comfortable posting them here. If something seems like it would really benefit from another thread, we'll start another thread. I don't trust Polyphonist's judgement for deciding or suggesting when that point is reached.

We're not ready to choose a piece (otherwise, we would have done it already). We're ruminating, cogitating, sharing ideas, considering what might be of interest to others, balancing different interests of those who have posted here with an interest. We're not all on at the same time, or as frequently as some of us, so it takes a while. When as a group we're ready, a piece will be chosen.

Seems to me like the inefficiency is continuing. You guys have it your own way. And to say that I'm not interested in teaching is stupid, because I explicitly stated earlier in the thread that I welcomed PMs from less experienced members.

In light of recent posts, I make a new suggestion: Create two threads: one for basic theory questions and long-winded explanations, and another for just the pure analysis. The threads will be related, and it's fine to quote posts in one thread into the other; it's just that they have slightly different purposes. That way the newcomers can hang out more in one thread, and myself and others will feed information into it by way of the other.

Polyphonist, please feel free to create whatever thread you feel is appropriate for what you want to talk about.

I think I'm finished here for the moment. I will return when the thread gets moving and there's something to talk about besides futile arguments.

Feel free to ask questions as we go along.

Pp, we've established that we are in different areas of teaching, with you teaching people who already have the background. Here is where I'm coming from, and my take on efficiency:

I have done a fair bit of work in remediation. A student in grade 7, 8, 9 has a problem in a certain subject. Almost always, he is missing things from the very beginning, usually in the area of concepts. There is "never time" for it. When we work on these basic concepts everything else falls into place. Thus going at basic things wherever there is a hole is efficient.

As an adult music student I also advanced fast, and I was missing things everywhere. I found that by getting at basic things, and truly understanding the basics, I was able to soar. Again these "side tracks" ended up being the path to growth.

We are not students who have gone along the beaten path and who have the prerequisites. We are all over the place as a group, and that has to be kept in mind. A discussion that goes straight into a piece and only does that would work better in the Pianist forum. Make sense?

Did somebody say Beethoven?

I've no idea what to do next!

I suppose we could look at the Moonlight.

Everyone knows and loves the first movement. It would be interesting to look at it again and see where we've come in a year. The Allegretto, described by Liszt as the flower between two chasms, is beautiful and the final movement is in full sonata form.

Might we have consensus to go there?

Can I insist on questions in the thread and futile arguments as sidebars?

Sounds good. Movements 1, 2, and 3 of Moonlight, in order.

All right - first let me answer the question some of you were asking earlier on about this piece: Why is the first movement so popular?

Well, it's quite simple. The movement is slow, and therefore supposed by many to be very technically accessible, although it isn't. Part of its appeal also stems from the large variety of chords used, and the relative rhythmic and melodic simplicity. Furthermore, I believe that a lot of its popularity is purely based on the title given to it by Ludwig Rellstab back in the nineteenth century - the name "Moonlight" is appealing because it conveys a lot of the emotion and meaning of the piece to those who cannot grasp it from the music alone.

Beethoven, personally, was annoyed about the large popularity of the Pathetique and Moonlight Sonatas, and the consequent neglect of his other, better, works.

Well, thank you and good night! Are we moving on to the Schubert now?

Because it's slow? Do you realise how trite this sounds? Lots of chords with relative rhythmic and melodic simplicity? We may be adult beginners but I don't think there's any need to insult our intelligence.

Beethoven was annoyed at a lot of things. He had an irascible temperament. I would not be at all surprised to learn that he was acquainted with your ancestors!

It's not at all simple or we'd all be writing this stuff!

John Lennon wrote Help! with a similarly simple melody, a simple rhythm and a relatively high number of chords (more than three). D'you think he was cut of the same cloth and The Beatles just played it too fast? Or do you think he just gave it the wrong name?

Wow, they must be lining up to get lessons from you!

It might be trite if that was all that the post said. There was more than that.
This is the entire post.

I'd like to look more into these things. I struggling with a deadline and just popping in, so... later.

Continuing what I was starting to do earlier in this thread, which is prioritize aural experience, I will be listening to the Sonata #14 in C# minor, Op. 27 No. 2, several times over the next few days.

OK. Let's look more at it then.

"Well, it's quite simple. The movement is slow, and therefore supposed by many to be very technically accessible, although it isn't."

Slow and seeming technical accessibility doesn't cut it for me. The popularity of the piece extends beyond pianists. It's a big seller in the market place because people want to hear it. I don't think other popular pieces are popular because of their apparent technical accessibility.

"Part of its appeal also stems from the large variety of chords used, and the relative rhythmic and melodic simplicity." Do other pieces not use large varieties of chords and have relative simplicity in other respects, like rhythm and melody? Should we not have counted the chords first? This is an analysis thread not a bathroom conversation between courses in a restaurant. How many chords compared to other similar pieces that didn't cut it in the popularity stakes? What chords were they and what were their relationships? How many chords is normal compared to other pieces with simple melody and rhythm.

Handel was doing one thing complicated and keeping everything else simple long before Beethoven. Why did no-one cotton on to this until Beethoven? What constitutes rhythmic or melodic simplicity?

"Furthermore, I believe that a lot of its popularity is purely based on the title given to it by Ludwig Rellstab back in the nineteenth century - the name "Moonlight" is appealing because it conveys a lot of the emotion and meaning of the piece to those who cannot grasp it from the music alone." Oh, really? The title increases its popularity because the music's too difficult for us to understand without it? Beethoven was five years dead before the piece had that title. And why did Bach's Prelude in C make it with such a simple monicker? Would it have taken the world by storm better if it were called Rainbow?

"Beethoven, personally, was annoyed about the large popularity of the Pathétique and Moonlight Sonatas, and the consequent neglect of his other, better, works." The large popularity of his works? I believe the Op. 101 is the only sonata that was performed publically in Beethoven's lifetime.

The concert-goer wasn't much into solo piano music at the time. They wanted concerted music. So what was the large popularity based on? Sheet music sales? It wasn't airplay!And what change have the "other, better, works" undergone in popularity since? If the other works are better, why are they better, and why are they not more popular? And why have the great concert pianists not brought out the better music in the intervening years? It's not as if the entire 32 hasn't been studied in depth.

The whole post is trite. It replaces the very things we should be looking at in our analysis with unsound conclusions and unjustifiable opinion.

What was it about the sonata as a whole that inspired Chopin to write his Fantasie-Impromptu Op. 66 and what are the parallels in the two pieces?

How is the simple melody and rhythm, from the Marcia Funebre of his just prior Op. 26, transformed by the subtle harmonic shifts into the appealing, emotive whimper? The whole movement lacks a big climax, sudden changes of dynamics or pitch or the melodic appoggiaturas that tug at our emotions. There's no new or unprepared harmony, no acceleration to a cadence. What pulls us in with this piece? Do we really want to settle for a 'large variety of chords used, and the relative rhythmic and melodic simplicity'? This is teaching in the Dickensian "because I say so" mould.

No, I'm not prepared to sit back and take someone's word for it in a thread where the very purpose should be to find these things out.

I finally have time to consider the points that Pp made yesterday.

I have my own ideas about that which I will write in a bit, but first, here's what I found through a search using the keywords "Moonlight popularity". I found comments on the net such as:

"Most people are only familiar with the first movement, and, to play it isn't all that difficult. To play it well, is something else. To be able to play the third movement at a proper tempo takes incredible skill, and, to play it well, takes damn near virtuoso talent."

and

"It's serious music that's accessible to students"

Loads of such comments can be found , generally in forums of a serious nature where the writers seem to know something about music.

I do believe this idea has merit. The first movement does have notes that are accessible to people who are not virtuoso pianists, and slow music is easier to play at an elementary level than fast music because if you're closer to starting out, you can't go fast. I remember reading the site of one teacher who taught adult students and the Moonlight was the first thing his students every played. He used it to teach basic chords, hand positions, whatever, because of that simplicity and accessibility. (If someone read this - it was on PW or PS - might they remember the name?).

Back to the one writer I quoted: "Most people are only familiar with the first movement, and, to play it isn't all that difficult. To play it well, is something else." The problem with "easy, slow" music is that the musician must put subtlety into it, and that requires a mastery that a beginner doesn't have. But on a rudimentary level it still sounds rather good, and it doesn't sound like the "Tweety Bird Goes Up and Down" that the teacher I had for 6 months as a teen gave me.

Next idea brought up by Pp
On the Net I found comments such as this:

"Part of it could be that it has a nickname--
just like Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, Haydn's Surprise Symphony, and Chopin's Raindrop Prelude."

I think that we can consider seriously whether "Beethoven’s opus 27 no. 2 C# minor" would attract the average person as much as the name "Moonlight Sonata". Names and imagery do have an effect on people, and if you consider a piece's popularity among people who are not advanced musicians, the imagery might hold even more sway. I'm not ashamed to admit that names like "Raindrop", "Moonlight", and "Surprise" do light my imagination - which is not to say I would try to play something based on an image. It does help me remember a piece's name. Marketing has long based itself on imagery, and a poorly named product may sell badly regardless of its quality otherwise.

Pronounced, "Moonlight Sonata" also has a rhythm and softness due to the M, L, N, the gentle oo and o, which as "poetry" match the feel of the first movement. Human psyche does go into such things.

There was also a time when I didn't know that these pieces had other names, and thought that Moonlight was its real name. Telling us that it was renamed, and when and by whom, is neither trite nor trivial.

The last point in that post:

The first hit I got was
"The first movement of Beethoven’s opus 27 no. 2 C# minor sonata was very popular in Beethoven’s day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself, who remarked to Czerny, ‘They are always talking about the C# minor sonata surely I’ve written better things.’ Nearly two hundred years later, it still remains the most popular and downloaded piece of ‘classical’ music."

in this link
http://theuniversallanguageofmusici...ia-better-known-as-the-moonlight-sonata/

Elsewhere I found this:

"The first movement of Beethoven’s opus 27 no. 2 C# minor sonata was very popular in Beethoven’s day, to the point of exasperating the composer himself, who remarked to Czerny, ‘They are always talking about the C# minor sonata surely I’ve written better things.' "


There is an actual quote of Beethoven to support the notion.

This is still on the subject so I hope it's not seen as too much of a digression. I've been studying music history, having gotten up to the Renaissance, and one underlying theme is relationship of musicians to those who support and use the music they create, and the choices that musicians have made because of this. For example, churches have always needed church music so that's a no brainer. At a certain point, you have highly trained musicians who want to show off, and a society where the upper class are expected to be well rounded in the arts and who are also sponsoring these musicians. Written music has been invented, and there is a demand for compositions that are clever, often with musical riddles that the elite can solve. This music becomes popular on those circles, and musicians who create and perform such music are also sponsored in their training and their activity. This is absolutely a factor in what gets known and what never sees the light of day.

Later this changes. You have a growing well-educated bourgeoisie with money to spend, the printing press has been invented, being able to read and sing or play is expected, and there is a demand for music. These are not highly trained musicians, and they are not aristocrats who have also have relatively high training. The music has to be at their skill level, and that is the music that gets sold and thus produced. Will music that doesn't get printed and used survive? Before the Internet and Youtube, how much visibility will a musician get, regardless of how talented, if he can't find a patron or sponsorship of some kind.

These ARE factors. The fact that the Moonlight Sonata's first movement has the attributes that it does, so that it is both beautiful, and its notes are easy to play, will have to be factored in and not dismissed, when asking why this or that piece is popular.