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Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata"

I'm aware that using a pre-existing recording without gaining rights interferes with copyrights. As far as I'm concerned, the sheet music is in the public domain (if not, please tell me), so, can anyone play this great piece? The music fits in with my current project very unusually, quite disturbing, to be honest, and replacing it with a generic short film score would be very disappointing. If anyone could help, I would extremely appreciate it. Please contact me at jaredckowis@gmail.com if you can.

Thanks.
 
Sure, you can play it yourself, or have someone play it.

I actually did that with the very same piece, on a cheesy thing several years back. Crash-course in piano. :cool:
 
I'm sure there is a website dedicated to royalty free music? Although it escapes me.

I nearly dropped a lung when i heard Enrico Caruso was public domain. After 100 OR 120 (I'm uncertain which one) years the material is no longer property of the proprietor or can be claimed by any one party to force legal action.
 
I'm aware that using a pre-existing recording without gaining rights interferes with copyrights. As far as I'm concerned, the sheet music is in the public domain (if not, please tell me), so, can anyone play this great piece? The music fits in with my current project very unusually, quite disturbing, to be honest, and replacing it with a generic short film score would be very disappointing. If anyone could help, I would extremely appreciate it. Please contact me at jaredckowis@gmail.com if you can.

Thanks.

This was JUST the question I was going to ask. Google searches suggested it was legal to do this. Glad the opinion here confirms it. I'm heading to Craigslist to post an ad for a cellist who can play some classical music for my next short.

For my last short I found a young jazz musician who composed a few tunes and played them on guitar. It was probably the most impressive part of the movie.
 
This was JUST the question I was going to ask. Google searches suggested it was legal to do this. Glad the opinion here confirms it. I'm heading to Craigslist to post an ad for a cellist who can play some classical music for my next short.

For my last short I found a young jazz musician who composed a few tunes and played them on guitar. It was probably the most impressive part of the movie.

In my opinion the song is a bit overdone. I really don't think that anyone will get it better than VanSant. IMO. Check out Elephant and you'll agree. It's like watching a movie that has your favorite song; you can picture it the way you want it, but when you see it in another way you will despise it because it doesn't hold up to the previous standard.<---- if this made sense?
 
Overused? Never. It's a beautiful piece. I've used it. To great affect (no misspelling), if I do say so myself.

What you want to do is perfectly legal. A recorded performance is copywritten, but this writing is public domain.

Based on the nature of your query, I'm assuming you don't know how to sequence? Perhaps you can find someone who can. It doesn't have to be a live performance.
 
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