Piano Sonata No. 2 in B‑Flat Minor

Chopin composed three piano sonatas, and while the first is a rarely heard work from his youth, the other two are mature masterpieces at the core of the piano’s repertoire. The Piano Sonata No. 2 is often nicknamed “Funeral March”, after its famous third movement. This march was composed in 1837, the remaining three movements following in 1839 during a productive summer at George Sand’s country estate in central France. Contemporary critics, not least Robert Schumann, struggled to find unity in its four disparate movements—although the model of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A-flat major, Op. 26, a piece Chopin played and taught, is apparent—yet Chopin manages to synthesise his earlier achievements across a range of genres. The first movement brims with étude-like figuration, offset by a second theme redolent of a nocturne. The “Scherzo” that follows is wild and tremendously challenging for the pianist, with another nocturne acting as the trio section. The “March funèbre” encases yet another nocturne, this time an otherworldly song with an eerie undertone; but as in the “Scherzo”, we find one expressive world juts up against another, kept separate rather than joined together. The finale is over in a flash, a moto perpetuo flurry of whispering unison figuration memorably described by Anton Rubinstein as being like the night wind blowing through a graveyard—an extremely unusual ending to a sonata.