HN1330
Beethoven gave this sonata the unusual title "Sonata quasi una Fantasia," which it shares, along with its opus number, with the considerably more famous "Moonlight" Sonata. Both sonatas – along with the preceding sonata with the funeral march, Op. 26, and the three sonatas, Op. 31 soon to follow – usher in Beethoven's conquest of new musical territory in this genre. with a complex structure that oscillates between fantasia and sonata, Op. 27 No. 1 has long presented pianists with great interpretive challenges that, once they have been overcome, bring to light a true jewel.