The piece
Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13, came out in Vienna in 1799 as the "Grande Sonate pathétique", a name Beethoven chose himself. Its slow movement, Adagio cantabile, is in A-flat major: a calm song between two restless movements. This easy version, arranged for Noctave after the Berners (1908) and Peters (1910) editions, keeps Beethoven's melody, first in the middle of the keyboard and then an octave higher, the episode in F minor and the return of the theme; the left hand plays the bass of each beat and then one note of the accompaniment.
The tempo is very slow: one eighth note per second. The danger is rushing. Hold each quarter note of the melody to its end, listening to the sound fade, and join it to the next with no gap. The left hand's eighths stay soft, quieter than the tune. In the episode, the repeated chords keep the same lightness, and the high C of bar 18 is prepared during the rest before it.
