One evening Ludwing van Beethoven and a friend were taking a walk. As they were passing through a narrow, dark street, they heard music coming from a little house.
“Hush” Beethoven said. “it is from one of my most beautiful pieces.”
Suddenly a voice said, “I cannot play anymore- it is so beauty! How I wish I could hear that piece played by someone who could do justice to it.”
Without a word, Beethoven and his friend entered the houde. It was the home of a poor shoemaker. At the piano sat a young girl.
“Pardon me,” said the great composer. “I am musician. I heard you say you wished to hear someone play the piece you have just been playing. Will you permit to play it for you?
“Thank you very much,” answered the girl, “but our piano is very old. And we have no music sheets.”
“No music sheets! How did you play, then? Asked Beethoven.
The young girl turned her face toward the great master.
Looking at her more closely, he saw that he was blind.
“I play from memory,” she said.
“where did you hear the piece that you were playning just now?
“I used to hear a lady practicing near our old home. During the summer evenings, her windows were open, and I walked to and fro outside to listen to her, “ she answered.
Who Are You?
Beethoven seated himself at the piano. The blind girl and her brother listened with raptured to the master’s playing. At last the shoemaker came neqr and asked, “Who are you?
Beethoven made no answer. The shoemaker repeated his questions, and master smiled. He began to play the piece which the girl hads trying to play.
The listeners held their breath. When the playing stopped, they cried, “You are the master himself! You are Beethoven!”
He rose to go, but they held him back.
“Play for us once more- only once more,” they pleaded.
He seated himself again at the piano. The brilliant moonlight was shinning into the bare little room.
“I will compose a sonata to the moonlight,” he said.
He looked thoughtfully for something at the bright skies lit up by the moon and the twinkling stars. Then his fingers moved ocer the keys of the old, worn piano. In low, sad, sweet strains, he played his new piece. Finally, pushing back his chair, and turning towards the door he said, “Farewell to you.”
He paused and looked tenderly at the face blind girl.
“Yes, I will come again an give you some lessons. Farewell! I will soon come again!”
Beethoven said to his friend, “let us hurry that I may write out that sonata while I can yet remenber it!”
That was how Ludwing van Beethoven’s famous “Moonlight sonata” was composed.
