A masterpiece which highlights why Beethoven was such an innovative composer by composing music which was at the same time complex and sophisticated.
It is presumed that this piece was dedicated to a woman, one of his piano students, with whom Beethoven had fallen in love. Her name was Countess Julie Guicciardi and she was so beautiful that people called her "La Bella Guicciardi". Beethoven had most probably proposed marriage to her and she was ready to accept but her father forbade a marriage with a man "without rank, fortune or permanent engagement..."(Thayer's Life of Beethoven).
The piece includes a sorrowful first movement, a positive and joyful second movement and a third movement which is pure, fun adrenaline.
The nickname "Moonlight Sonata" traces to the 1830s (almost 5 years after Beethoven's death), when a German poet likened the first movement to a boat floating in the moonlight on Switzerland's lake Lucern.