Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 14 in C♯ minor “Moonlight” Op. 27 No. 2

The Moonlight Sonata No. 14, Op. 27 No. 2, was completed in 1801 and is dedicated to the 17-year-old Countess Guicciardi, with whom Beethoven was, or had been, in love. The nickname “Moonlight” derives from a description of the first movement made in 1832 by the poet Ludwig Rellstab, who compared it to the moonlight shining over Lake Lucerne. While titling it Quasi una fantasia (as with the other sonata of Op. 27), Beethoven in part did so because the work does not follow the traditional sonata-pattern where the first movement is a standard-form sonata and the three or four movements are arranged in a fast-slow-[fast]-fast sequence.