Piano Sonata No. 2 (Chopin)

5–7 minutes[note 2]

Breitkopf & Härtel edition edited by Johannes Brahms (1878). This edition lacks a backwards repeat sign at the Doppio movimento and therefore indicates that the repetition of the exposition should start at the Grave.

The first movement is in a modified sonata form[note 3] in B♭ minor and ²
₂ time. It opens with a four-bar introduction in the relative major, D♭ major[8] marked Grave, followed by a tempo change to Doppio movimento,[note 4] a key change to the tonic key, and the introduction of an agitated[7] bass accompanimental figure; four bars later, the main theme enters. The main theme, marked agitato, is followed by a second theme, in D♭ major, which is marked piano and sostenuto. In the beginning of the development, all of the themes introduced in the exposition appear.[note 5] Later in the development, a seemingly new tune, which is actually an inversion of part of the second theme, is introduced. In the climax of the development, Chopin combines three elements at once: the motifs from the Grave introduction and the main theme in the bass and treble respectively, with crotchet triplets in the middle.[9] In the recapitulation, the principal section containing the main theme does not return, possibly inspired by the older binary sonata form typical of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas;[10] instead, only the lyrical second theme returns in the tonic's parallel major of B♭. The movement is closed with a brilliant[7] 12-bar stretto which forms a coda of 12 bars, ending in three B♭ major chords marked fff (fortississimo).

When the sonata was published in 1840 in the usual three cities of Paris, Leipzig, and London,[11] the London and Paris editions indicated the repeat of the exposition as starting at the very beginning of the movement (at the Grave section). However, the Leipzig edition designed the repeat as beginning at the Doppio movimento section. Although the critical edition published by Breitkopf & Härtel (that was edited, among others, by Franz Liszt, Carl Reinecke, and Johannes Brahms) indicate the repeat similarly to the London and Paris first editions, almost all 20th-century editions are similar to the Leipzig edition in this regard. Charles Rosen argues that the repeat of the exposition in the manner perpetrated by the Leipzig edition is a serious error, saying it is "musically impossible" as it interrupts the D♭ major cadence (which ends the exposition) with the B♭ minor accompanimental figure.[12] Edward T. Cone agrees, calling the repeat to the Doppio movimento "nonsense". However, Leikin advocates for excluding the Grave from the repeat of the exposition, citing in part that Karol Mikuli's 1880 complete edition of Chopin contained a repeat sign after the Grave in the first movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2. Mikuli was a student of Chopin from 1844 to 1848 and also observed lessons Chopin gave to other students – including those where this sonata was taught – and took extensive notes.[13]

Most commercial recordings exclude the Grave from the repetition of the exposition, including those of Vladimir Ashkenazy, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Murray Perahia, Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich, and Li Yundi; however, the recordings of Mitsuko Uchida, Yulianna Avdeeva and Janusz Olejniczak, among others, begin the repetition from the Grave. Other recordings, including those of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Evgeny Kissin, and Garrick Ohlsson, exclude the repetition altogether.

6–7 minutes

Opening of the Scherzo

The second movement is a scherzo in E♭ minor and ³
₄ time with no tempo indication. Anatole Leikin suggests that the absence of the tempo indication can be explained by the close similarities of this movement and the closing section of the first movement, including the prevalence of repeated octaves and chords in both movements, and the identical cadential phrases. Therefore, the absence of a tempo indication may suggest that there is no new tempo, but instead a mere change of notation (from triplets to triple metre).[14]

The movement is in the conventional scherzo-trio-scherzo form[15] with the trio in G♭ major. The scherzo's explosive rhythmic and dynamic power, as well as its furious insistence on repeated chords and octaves, places it in the tradition of the scherzo movements of Beethoven. However, unlike Beethoven, whose scherzos are transformed minuets, this scherzo has many defining rhythmic characteristics that make it a transformed mazurka instead.[10] The trio, marked Più lento, has a songlike quality to it with its simple, sensuous melody.[16] Following the return of the scherzo is a coda[7] that is a condensed reprise of the trio[17] and therefore ends the work in the relative major; other works of Chopin that also end in the relative major include the Scherzo No. 2 in B♭ minor (Op. 31) and the Fantaisie in F minor (Op. 49).

8–9 minutes

Opening of the Marche funèbre

The third movement, titled Marche funèbre, is a "stark juxtaposition of funeral march and pastoral trio".[18] The movement is in B♭ minor and ⁴
₄ time with the trio in the relative major of D♭. The tempo designation, Lento, was not added until after the sonata's publication in 1840.[19] The movement opens with a melody consisting of just a repeated B♭ for almost three measures accompanied by alternating B♭ (without the third) and G♭ major chords that ring like a funereal bell. This melodic device was also used as the backbone for the main theme of the preceding Scherzo movement and part of the coda of the opening movement.[17] The melody following the repeated B♭, is, as Alan Walker notes, "a strict retrogade" of the first movement's main theme.[20] The trio of the movement, which is in the tonic's relative major, consists of a serene nocturne-like melody[21] accompanied by quavers in the left hand.

The Marche funèbre alone has remained one of Chopin's most popular compositions[22] and has become an archetypal evocation of death. It has been widely arranged for other instrumentations, most notably for orchestra.[23][24] The first known orchestral arrangement of the movement was made by Napoléon Henri Reber and was played at the graveside during Chopin's own burial on 30 October 1849 at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.[25][26] The English conductor Henry Wood made two orchestrations of the Marche funèbre, the first of which was played at The Proms on four occasions between 1895 and 1904.[27] For the First Night of the 1907 Proms on 17 August 1907, Wood conducted a new version he had written on learning of the death two days earlier of the renowned violinist Joseph Joachim.[28] In 1933, Sir Edward Elgar transcribed the Marche funèbre for full orchestra; its first performance was at his own memorial concert the next year. It was also transcribed for large orchestra by the conductor Leopold Stokowski; this version was recorded for the first time by Matthias Bamert.

Although the movement was originally published as Marche funèbre, Chopin changed its title to simply Marche in his corrections of the first Paris edition.[19][29] In addition, whenever Chopin wrote about this movement in his letters, he referred to it as a "march" instead of a "funeral march".[note 6] Kallberg believes Chopin's removal of the adjective funèbre was possibly motivated by his contempt for descriptive labels of his music.[31] After his London publisher Wessel & Stapleton added unauthorised titles to Chopin's works, including The Infernal Banquet to his first scherzo in B minor (Op. 20), the composer, in a letter to Fontana, wrote:

Now concerning [Christian Rudolf Wessel], he is an ass and a cheater ... if he has lost on my compositions, it is doubtless due to the stupid titles he has given them in spite of my repeated railings to [Frederic Stapleton]; that if I listened to the voice of my soul, I would have never sent him anything more after those titles.

— [32]

In 1826, a decade before he wrote this movement, Chopin had composed another Marche funèbre in C minor, which was published posthumously as Op. 72 No. 2.[33]

1–2 minutes

Opening of the finale

The short finale, marked Presto and in ²
₂ time, is a perpetuum mobile in "relatively simple" binary form[note 7] consisting of parallel octaves played sotto voce e legato (similarly to the Prelude in E♭ minor, Op. 28 No. 14) and not a single rest or chord until the final bars with a sudden fortissimo B♭ bass octave and a B♭ minor chord ending the whole piece. In this movement, "a complicated chromaticism is worked out in implied three- and four-part harmony entirely by means of one doubled monophonic line";[34] very similarly, the five measures that begin J. S. Bach's Fugue in A minor (BWV 543) imply a four-part harmony through a single monophonic line.[35] Garrick Ohlsson remarked that the movement is "extraordinary, because he’s written the weirdest movement he's ever written in his whole life, something which truly looks to the 20th century and post-romanticism and atonality".[36] Additionally, Leikin describes the finale as "probably the most enigmatic piece Chopin ever wrote",[20] and Anton Rubinstein is said to have remarked that the fourth movement is the "wind howling around the gravestones".[37]

Chopin, who wrote pedal indications very frequently, did not write any in the Finale except for the very last bar. Although Moritz Rosenthal (a pupil of Liszt and Mikuli) claimed that the movement should not be played with any pedal except where indicated in the last measure, Rosen believed that the "effect of wind over the graves", as Anton Rubinstein described this movement, "is generally achieved with a heavy wash of pedal".[34]

A recurring motif from the Prelude of Bach's Cello Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012

Main theme from the first movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2

The Piano Sonata No. 2 draws an allusion to the Prelude from Bach's Cello Suite No. 6 in D major, BWV 1012. A frequently repeated motif of Bach's Prelude is noticeably similar to the main theme of the first movement of Chopin's sonata; in addition, similarly to the Finale of Chopin's sonata, the Prelude is a perpetuum mobile with four groups of quaver triplets per bar.[38] In addition, in the Finale, Chopin borrowed from Bach the craft of achieving polyphony through a monophonic line by the means of arpeggiated figures: in some respects, he even went further than Bach in this regard.[39] In addition, the plan of Chopin's sonata directly follows that of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12 in A♭ major, Op. 26, which also is in four movements and features a Marcia funèbre slow movement: like Chopin's sonata, the slow funeral march movement follows the fast scherzo second movement.[2] Chopin is usually regarded as the Romantic era composer least influenced by Beethoven;[40] however, Beethoven's Op. 26 was reportedly his favourite Beethoven sonata, and he played and taught it more than any other Beethoven sonata.[2]