a Small opinion needed, please...help :)

[nickelless_cage]

Hi, i'm new to this forum , i'm gonna make it quick....i basically have NO idea about compositions and composers, per se....i'm a small time writer, and exposure to outside world for me is limited cuz i am handicapped...i'm currently making a website which has a few memories of the family i lost last year, a few events and occurances that happened in my life that changed me as a person, and also a few of my writings...i have been frantically searching for a really soul stirring music that would Gel well with the mood of the contents of my Webpage...but i have'nt been able to find any good one...until one day i heared a small skit on TV of a piano composition that moved me...after MUCH searching ...i found out that the composition was Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata, Piano composition".....

i want a background music for all the pages in my website (it'd roughly have 6 pages)....and i have decided that the Homepage would have "Moonlight sonata" as its background music.......

now my question is.......can any one of you good people PLEaSe....suggest me a composition of ANY composer....that is similar to the mood that "moonlight sonata" has to it......sort of somber, dark...yet...having an AURA to it...that makes it hard to turn away from it....

lemme quickly throw in a sample writing of mine...so you can understand why exactly i need a composition that's sort of...grim...

"dreams of her death haunting me, dying away the fear in which i inflicted upon her, silent screams invading my every thought only to remind me that i will forever be tormented by her none existence. and that she forever bled me away, caste aside by her wish and slained body to escape the constant fear, the fear to love a beast, a demon, a forsaken soul by choice."

"bequeath the light that has descended on you..the light that illuminates your flaws to the rest, magnifying it to the others...take my hand, i'm darkness...i'll accept you for who you are and what you bring"

"watched the hardest of hard men shed themselves of all hope for they were judged by man, and forsaken by God".............and so on...

well i beleive...Moonlight Sonata as a background music would do justice to the written work of that nature...

if anyone can please recommend me a few compositions that are SIMILAR...or the closest best...to Moonlight SOnata .....i'd be extremely grateful.....

thanks , N!CK     

[Souza]

Hi, i'm new to this forum , i'm gonna make it quick....i basically have NO idea about compositions and composers, per se....i'm a small time writer, and exposure to outside world for me is limited cuz i am handicapped...i'm currently making a website which has a few memories of the family i lost last year, a few events and occurances that happened in my life that changed me as a person, and also a few of my writings...i have been frantically searching for a really soul stirring music that would Gel well with the mood of the contents of my Webpage...but i have'nt been able to find any good one...until one day i heared a small skit on TV of a piano composition that moved me...after MUCH searching ...i found out that the composition was Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata, Piano composition".....

i want a background music for all the pages in my website (it'd roughly have 6 pages)....and i have decided that the Homepage would have "Moonlight sonata" as its background music.......

now my question is.......can any one of you good people PLEaSe....suggest me a composition of ANY composer....that is similar to the mood that "moonlight sonata" has to it......sort of somber, dark...yet...having an AURA to it...that makes it hard to turn away from it....

lemme quickly throw in a sample writing of mine...so you can understand why exactly i need a composition that's sort of...grim...

"dreams of her death haunting me, dying away the fear in which i inflicted upon her, silent screams invading my every thought only to remind me that i will forever be tormented by her none existence. and that she forever bled me away, caste aside by her wish and slained body to escape the constant fear, the fear to love a beast, a demon, a forsaken soul by choice."

"bequeath the light that has descended on you..the light that illuminates your flaws to the rest, magnifying it to the others...take my hand, i'm darkness...i'll accept you for who you are and what you bring"

"watched the hardest of hard men shed themselves of all hope for they were judged by man, and forsaken by God".............and so on...

well i beleive...Moonlight Sonata as a background music would do justice to the written work of that nature...

if anyone can please recommend me a few compositions that are SIMILAR...or the closest best...to Moonlight SOnata .....i'd be extremely grateful.....

thanks , N!CK     

Beethoven - Adios al piano in my opinion is beautiful song:
https://www.musicanaescola.com/adios_al_piano.htm

Dance of the Blessed Spirits (Melody) (from "Orfeo ed Euridice"), various arrangements Dance of the Blessed Spirits: Arranged by Sgambati for piano
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000001KBX/qid=1129050455/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-7945946-6539219?v=glance&s=classical




{}s Pedro

[bernhard]

Have a look here for some ideas:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,1943.msg15389.html#msg15389
(Haunting Nocturnal pieces)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2287.msg19431.html#msg19431
(Melancholy and depressing pieces)


Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[nickelless_cage]

 

thank you SO much, Souza and Bernhard, VERY helpful....*respect*


*could'nt find Adios Ao Piano, i'll do a extensive search for it again*

[nsvppp]

Cello and orchestra, a hunting and complaining sad melody:
Kol Nidrei - Max Bruch

[gruffalo]

Beethoven has a very nice distinct quartet in a very sombre and sad mood. i dont know what it was but i remember it because it is in the drama series "Band of Brothers" (director Tom Hanks , and is about one Airborne Unit's survival throughout the war. they were paratroopers). in one scene, they are all relaxing and it shows the German villagers clearing up their own town which was either (from the looks of it) bombed or a major fight occured there earlier. i know it might not help writing this but someone who also saw the programs and who also recognises pieces well can tell you what it is. it will suit your website very well.

p.s it was a string quartet, but dont know what its called, but im sure its Beethoven.

[nickelless_cage]

Wow......i thoroughly immersed myself in the recommendations i got from you people, and while all of them were exceptional pieces of music....only a few of them i found were thought provoking....none like Moonlight Sonata....a few of Chopin's nocturne's were brilliant as well....and this unnamed MIDI of Chris Armstrong's i found...astounding

what GENERE is Beethoven's "Moonlight"  exactly ?  with its baroqueness lying in its simplicity....i find myself reaching deep inside of me and come out with something better, EVERY time i listen to this...

i'd like to keep this thread rolling, if i may....i'd appreciate a few more recommendations......any compositions that  has stirred you people inside, something that's just Piano...nothing else...no elaborate concerts with chorus of instruments...nothing too euphoric or felicitous....something that's quaint, almost timid....but extremely effective....

i'm sorry, i don't intend to sound demanding.....i just wish to learn some more from you....

[phil13]

'Moonlight' Sonata is Classical by era, but Romantic by its nature. That's its genre.

If you're looking for something with the same type of feeling, try Chopin's Preludes. The slow, brooding ones are very similar.

Best bets:

Op.28 No.4 in E minor (most similar IMO)
Op.28 No.6 in B minor
Op.28 No.13 in F# major (possibly)
Op.28 No.15 in Db major 'Raindrop'
Op.45 in C# minor (second most similar IMO)

Phil

[bernhard]

'Moonlight' Sonata is Classical by era, but Romantic by its nature. That's its genre.

Actually it is a mixture of two genres: Sonata and Fantasia. (Beethoven tells us so: "Sonata quasi una fantasia" - Sonata, almost a fantasia).

I quote briefly from Timothy Jones: "Moonlight and other sonatas op. 27 and op. 31" (Cambridge University Press) - a most interesting little book that is highly recommended if you are interested in this work:

"At the end of the 18th century the fundamental distinctions between the sonata and the free fantasy stemmed form the premeditated, fixed condition of the former and the improvised, transitory existence of the latter. The styles and forms permissible in the sonatas were somewhat prescirbed by convention, but the fantasy was characterised by its greater formal freedom, its apparent lack of order and discipline in the working out of ideas, and the strangeness of effect that it allowed. While a sonata might contain between two and four 'closed' movements, fantasies were indivisible, though they could consist of several open ended sections in different styles and forms.

[...]

A comparison of sonata and fantasy characteristics:

Sonata

Premeditated
multimovement
relative formal constraint
limited modulation permissible
unified affective character
clearly structured themes
strong continuity ensures comprehensibility

Fantasy

improvised
single movement
relative formal freedom
free modulation permissible
varied affective character
ideas may be loosely structured
ideas may be weakly connected
disjunctions are characteristic.

[...]

By demanding that they judge his sonatas according to the cirteria reserved for fantasies, the composer was asserting his autonomy from the vagaries of popular taste, and his compositional experiments in the following years are unthinkable without the success of this declaration"

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[phil13]

Actually it is a mixture of two genres: Sonata and Fantasia. (Beethoven tells us so: "Sonata quasi una fantasia" - Sonata, almost a fantasia).

I quote briefly from Timothy Jones: "Moonlight and other sonatas op. 27 and op. 31" (Cambridge University Press) - a most interesting little book that is highly recommended if you are interested in this work:

"At the end of the 18th century the fundamental distinctions between the sonata and the free fantasy stemmed form the premeditated, fixed condition of the former and the improvised, transitory existence of the latter. The styles and forms permissible in the sonatas were somewhat prescirbed by convention, but the fantasy was characterised by its greater formal freedom, its apparent lack of order and discipline in the working out of ideas, and the strangeness of effect that it allowed. While a sonata might contain between two and four 'closed' movements, fantasies were indivisible, though they could consist of several open ended sections in different styles and forms.

[...]

A comparison of sonata and fantasy characteristics:

Sonata

Premeditated
multimovement
relative formal constraint
limited modulation permissible
unified affective character
clearly structured themes
strong continuity ensures comprehensibility

Fantasy

improvised
single movement
relative formal freedom
free modulation permissible
varied affective character
ideas may be loosely structured
ideas may be weakly connected
disjunctions are characteristic.

[...]

By demanding that they judge his sonatas according to the cirteria reserved for fantasies, the composer was asserting his autonomy from the vagaries of popular taste, and his compositional experiments in the following years are unthinkable without the success of this declaration"

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Oooops. Sorry about that. 

I though he meant when it was written, and thus what characteristics it would have based on the society and music around it.

Phil

[southpaw]

You should listen to the third movement of Beethoven's String Quartet Op 132 in A minor, the "Song of thanksgiving..."  That may be the piece you heard.

[gruffalo]

also the violin solo and string ensemble from shindler's liszt is beautiful and sad. i downloaded the mp3 off a p2p program and it says its called "Chopin - Williams - william tell ......) i didnt think it was by chopin. you guys must know this piece.