Matthew King – George IV’s Grand Piano by Nannette Streicher, Vienna, 1823

Beethoven’s second Sonata Op. 27 ‘Sonata quasi una fantasia’, more commonly known today as the ‘Moonlight Sonata’, was composed in 1801. Beethoven probably intended his music to sound and to mean something rather different from how it is commonly viewed today as a totem of Romanticism. Composer/pianist Matthew King will explain the sonata’s background and perform it on the Nannette Streicher fortepiano, which Beethoven himself probably played in the 1820.

Described by Judith Weir, Master of the Queen’s Music, as “one of Britain’s most adventurous composers, utterly skilled, imaginative and resourceful”, Matthew King is a pianist/composer whose output includes 45 single-movement piano sonatas; Richard Wagner in Venice: A Symphony (2021), a completion of unfinished sketches by Wagner, and a piano concerto, premiered in San Diego in June 2018. His chamber operas, The Snow Queen and The Pied Piper have had numerous productions in the UK and abroad. Reviewers have described his music as “exhilarating” (The Sunday Times) and “teeming with ideas…with a jauntiness of rhythm and texture” (The Times) as well as possessing “distinctive beauty with disarming theatre sense” (Independent on Sunday). Matthew King is Professor of Composition at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is also a regular recitalist and YouTuber with a channel called ‘The Music Professor’.