Hyperion Knight plays Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata Mvt . 1

“Let your deafness no longer be a secret—even in art!” This triumphal vow, made by Beethoven to himself, marked the end of the despondency about his hearing loss felt so deeply in his Heiligenstadt Testament. Beethoven would now "seize fate by the throat," and embark on "a completely new way of composing". His "Heroic" period followed, leaving the world to debate whether his music remained "classical" or was now truly "romantic." But however it may be defined, we can be sure of one thing: no artist ever plumbed the depths of the human soul more profoundly than Beethoven in his Moonlight Sonata and the incomparable masterpieces that followed.