Eric Crouch wrote: > 2) Someone repeated the belief commonly held among guitarists that > Beethoven wrote "Moonlight Sonata" after hearing Fernando Sor's study > in B minor for guitar. (I think it's from Sor's opus 31, but I'm not > sure because my copy hasn't got the opus no. on it.) I'd be > interested if anyone (perhaps Arthur) knows whether there is any > basis for this belief.
Could the basis be that to some listeners, one bunch of arpeggios sounds pretty much like another? Do guitarists really believe this? Unless I am badly misinformed, it's obviously impossible. The Moonlight Sonata was written in 1801 (when Beethoven was 30 and Sor about 23) and published in 1802. Sor had not left Spain by then and none of his music was published before 1804. So it would be impossible for Beethoven to have written the sonata after hearing the Sor study. It is, of course, possible that Beethoven influenced Sor. Howard Posner To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
