Chopin wrote three piano sonatas. The first, in C minor, is a very early work (written in 1828), while the second is the famous ‘Funeral March’ Sonata Op. 35 (it was one of the few works by Chopin about which Schumann was less than enthusiastic – he found aspects of the Funeral March ‘repellant’ and called the finale ‘more like a joke than a piece of music). Chopin’s Third Sonata, Op. 58, was written in 1844. It’s diverting to find some of his early biographers at odds over the structural coherence of this work: Niecks writes that ‘unity is as little discernible in this sonata as in its predecessor’ while Huneker says it has ‘more of that indefinable organic unity’. Bizarrely, both of them struggle to find power and pathos in the piece and are rather dismissive of Chopin’s attempt to come to terms with the solo piano sonata at the height of his artistic maturity. Even Franz Liszt found Chopin’s sonatas (and concertos) betrayed ‘more effort than inspiration’.  

This great work surely needs no defence, and happily some more recent Chopin scholars have come to appreciate what a remarkable achievement it is. Jim Samson, for instance, says that ‘Thematic links abound in the B minor Sonata Op. 58 … Having come to terms with the four-movement sonata in Op. 35 [the ‘Funeral March’ Sonata], approaching it by way of his unique achievements in the study, nocturne and dance piece, Chopin now felt able to tack the genre on its own terms, so to speak’. Writing about the first movement, Samson writes: ‘Thematic links are not only a means of unifying contrasts as in Op. 35. They also contribute to a process of continuous development and transformation within the bar-by-bar progression of the movement, an unbroken thread spun of related ideas. The process is supported, moreover, by a much closer integration of melody and accompaniment than in the earlier work.’ The second movement is a short Scherzo, a kind of playful intermezzo before the Largo – starting with loud and startling dotted rhythms, before giving way to a noble reverie. Murray Perahia has commented that this movement ‘tries forcefully to dispel any trace of anxiety’ and it does so with great restraint and simplicity. This isn’t simply a nocturne-like movement airlifted into a sonata (as some commentators have suggested), but a rather original structure – the dreamlike-central section much more extended than the outer sections with the main theme (based largely around the notes of the major triad). The final Presto con fuoco is an unremittingly energetic sonata rondo (to oversimplify, this is a rondo that combines elements of exposition, development and recapitulation from sonata form). The rhythmic drive of this movement leads to an exultant coda in which the key of B major blazes in triumph.  

Nigel Simeone © 2010