Piano Guidance
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Is Tempest sonata harder than moonlight?

For my fingers, the third movement of Moonlight is much harder than the third movement of Tempest. Moonlight demands an incredibly light, even, and fast touch for the arpeggios. It also requires much more stamina than Tempest does. As for which is the better show piece, definitely Moonlight.

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It's hard to compare because the difficulties are of a different type and it depends what your strengths and weaknesses are. I would say that both pieces would suffer if you tried learting them and getting them up to tempo too quickly. I you go for the Moonlight 3rd movt I would keep it at half speed for a good half of the period of time you have to learn it. Try to get the upward broken chords very light and even and perfectly synchronised with the staccato bass. It might help to practise the RH staccato too. If you can manage this it will help you to keep relaxed without you wrist getting tense and seized up. It will also help to keep the broken chords soft, which will make the loud repeated chords at the top all the more striking. If you can keep relaxed like this the movement should not really be too much of a trial of stamina because you will be able to pace yourself and reserve the ff moments to the places where they will have the most dramatic impact. I you go for the Tempest 3rd movement, again I think you need to start slowly and get the currect articulation and rhythm. At all cost avoid letting it sound as if it is in 6/8 time. The first 2 quavers of the LH opening bar (and the many similar bars) should be fingered 54. This is an awkward skip but allows you to hold on to the second quaver as Beethoven requires. Again, keeping to a slow tempo will help you to achieve the right feel for the rhythm and time signature. The end of this movement is also a bit treacherous with its diminuendo on a downward arpeggio and soft ending. At least with the Moonlight you can finish with 2 resounding loud chords! Perhaps it might be worth stariting to learn both movements at half tempo then, depending on how you progress, making a decision on which to go with after a month or so.

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What are the 4 movements of a sonata?

The sonata da chiesa usually consists of four movements, in the order slow–fast–slow–fast. The first fast movement tends to be loosely fugal (using contrapuntal melodic imitation) in style, and thus reflects, most clearly of the four, the sonata's roots in the fantasia and canzona.

Summary

sonata, type of musical composition, usually for a solo instrument or a small instrumental ensemble, that typically consists of two to four movements, or sections, each in a related key but with a unique musical character. Deriving from the past participle of the Italian verb sonare, “to sound,” the term sonata originally denoted a composition played on instruments, as opposed to one that was cantata, or “sung,” by voices. Its first such use was in 1561, when it was applied to a suite of dances for lute. The term has since acquired other meanings that can easily cause confusion. It can mean a composition in two or more movements, or separate sections, played by a small group of instruments, having no more than three independent parts. Most frequently it refers to such a piece for one or two instruments, such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (1801) for piano. By extension, sonata can also refer to a composition for a larger instrumental group having more than two or three parts, such as a string quartet or an orchestra, provided that the composition is based on principles of musical form that from the mid-18th century were used in sonatas for small instrumental groups. The term has been more loosely applied to 20th-century works, whether or not they rely on 18th-century principles. Quite distinct from all of the preceding, however, is the use of the term in “sonata form.” This denotes a particular form, or method of musical organization, typically used in one or more movements of multimovement instrumental works written since the beginning of the Classical period (the period of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven) in the mid-18th century. Such works include sonatas, string quartets and other chamber music, and symphonies. (See sonata form.)

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