Well, thanks for clearing that one up! The arpeggio pattern is different in the Sor study (which I now discover is Opus 35 no. 22) but there are similarities in the chord sequence sufficient to make the resemblance striking - and, yes it must be that guitarists are just very credulous people!
=EF=BF=BC Eric Crouch On 7 Aug 2005, at 20:46, Howard Posner wrote: > Eric Crouch wrote: > > >> 2) Someone repeated the belief commonly held among guitarists that >> Beethoven wrote "Moonlight Sonata" after hearing Fernando Sor's study >> in B minor for guitar. (I think it's from Sor's opus 31, but I'm not >> sure because my copy hasn't got the opus no. on it.) I'd be >> interested if anyone (perhaps Arthur) knows whether there is any >> basis for this belief. >> > > Could the basis be that to some listeners, one bunch of arpeggios > sounds pretty much like another? > Do guitarists really believe this? Unless I am badly misinformed, it's > obviously impossible. > > The Moonlight Sonata was written in 1801 (when Beethoven was 30 and > Sor > about 23) and published in 1802. Sor had not left Spain by then and > none of his music was published before 1804. So it would be > impossible > for Beethoven to have written the sonata after hearing the Sor study. > It is, of course, possible that Beethoven influenced Sor. > > Howard Posner > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html > --