Week 1: Beethoven Birthday Challenge – Choose Your Piece! 
Welcome to the first week of our Beethoven Birthday Challenge! In celebration of Beethoven’s genius, we invite you to select a piece from his repertoire to explore and perform this week. Whether you’re drawn to his sonatas, variations, or shorter works, the choice is yours! Let’s dive into his music and share our progress throughout the week.
Happy practicing, and may the spirit of Beethoven inspire you!
Challenge:
- Pick your Piece!
- Share your first video with us - it could be sight reading, playing, or talking about why you love the music!
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Hi everyone! I'd like to join with Andante Favori (WoO 57), which I've wanted to learn/record for a long time. It's also a great excuse to spend some time looking at the Waldstein sonata, which is too hefty for me to learn at the moment, but can still help me better understand why Beethoven originally intended Andante Favori as the 2nd movement.
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Judy Kuan really enjoyed this Judy and great version already ! Looking forward to how you develop it further,
definitely caught the spirit of Ludwig!
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Adena Michelle R Vidhya Bashyam Mark Cooper Thank you for listening already and your encouraging comments! Trying to refine the choreography to reduce ghost notes, even out the phrasing/rhythm, and highlight the different articulations, so hopefully you'll hear more of what Beethoven actually intended in next week's practice
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I am going to do a cover of the Moonlight Sonata- Mov 1. I know, many people have picked that topic, but I'm 90% there and this birthday challenge is going to be an opportunity for me to hit 100% and make a fun sketch out of it for my YouTube channel - Sketch Piano, where I combine Piano with comedy/ photography/ dance/ art to present it with more context.
https://www.youtube.com/@sketchpiano2710-
prathamvarshney I just subscribed! You are awesome
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prathamvarshney ha ha !! Great fun prathamvarshney
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Would you like to see a past video of the 1st movement of the sonata op 2 no 3?
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Angelina Tan With pleasure. Ludwig forever and whenever! :-)
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Yay, Ludwig! I will be celebrating your special day with the first movement of Op. 10 No 3.
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Like Gail, I’ll be working on the Pastoral Sonata op. 28. Looking forward to learning and celebrating with all of you!
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Andrea Buckland My lovely German twin
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Gail Starr
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This is a great opportunity for me to solidify Pathetique 2nd movement. I learned and practiced this piece the first half of the year. It has already slipped away from my memory. Thanks for inspiration.
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I working on the whole moonlight sonata would love to give the last movement ago will do practice video can we submit the performance video in advance it's just I'm in new Zealand and the hours are different so I don't play piano at night I have a keyboard but it's pretty quiet
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Maybe Appassionata, 1. Or maybe another thing!
Ciao!
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I'm working on the Op.90 E minor sonata. It's been frustrating because it feels like I'm having to spend about 90% of my practice time for the first movement on the wretched/notorious extended Alberti bass pattern – and still can't do it up to speed! But would love to give it a go anyway
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Mark Ware Hey, Mark! If YOU can’t get it up to speed, no one can…
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Gail Starr we'll see … !
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Mark Ware I have enormous confidence in your abilities!
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May I join this illustrious group of pianists in order to watch, learn and enjoy?
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I will learn the very charming op 14 no 2
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I have been learning Op. 31 No. 2, the "Tempest" sonata. Here is a video of the third movement. Not quite mastered for performance yet -- in particular, I (crudely) edited out a few brief memory glitches (there are still some wrong notes :).
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Jeff I like how you contrasted the repeat! Such a tough piece to memorize with all the neat modulations. You're sounding great!
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Jeff great stuff Jeff, and I agree with Judy very impressive memorisation!!
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Mark Cooper thank you!
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Thanks Judy! Much appreciated.
