“Moonlight” Sonata No. 14 in C# minor, III. Presto

The stormy final movement in C# minor, in sonata form and common time, is the weightiest of the three, reflecting an experiment of Beethoven's placement of the most important movement of the sonata last. The writing has many fast arpeggios, strongly accented notes, and fast alberti bass sequences that fall both into the right and left hands at various times. An effective performance of this movement demands lively, skillful playing and great stamina, and is significantly more demanding than the 1st and 2nd movements.

Beethoven's heavy use of sforzando (sfz) notes, together with just a few strategically located forissimo (ff) passages, creates the sense of a very powerful sound in spite of the predominance of piano (p) markings throughout.