Piano Sonata (Liszt)

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Piano Sonata (Liszt)

The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178

List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.1 - S.350)

This is a thematic list of original works by Franz Liszt, based on the catalogue of Humphrey Searle - The Music of Liszt, 1966; and on the additions by Sharon Winklhofer and Leslie Howard ....
, is a musical composition for solo piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard instrument. Widely used in Western music for solo performance, ensemble use, chamber music, and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to musical composition and rehearsal....
by Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt was a Kingdom of Hungary composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher.Liszt became renowned throughout Europe for his great skill as a performer during the 19th century....
.

Sonata was composed in 1852-1853, and first performed on January 27, 1857 in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
by Liszt's pupil and son-in-law, Hans von Bülow

Hans von Bülow

Hans Guido Freiherr von B?low was a German Conducting, virtuoso pianist, and composer of the Romantic music. He was one of the most famous conductors of the 19th century, and his activity was critical for establishing the successes of several major composers of the time, including Richard Wagner....
.

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Liszts Manuscript of A Page of Pianosonata

The Piano Sonata in B minor , S.178

List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.1 - S.350)

Piano

Franz Liszt

Franz Liszt was a Kingdom of Hungary composer, virtuoso pianist and teacher.Liszt became renowned throughout Europe for his great skill as a performer during the 19th century....
.

Background

The Sonata was composed in 1852-1853, and first performed on January 27, 1857 in Berlin

Berlin

Hans von Bülow

Eduard Hanslick

Eduard Hanslick was a Bohemian-Austrian writer on music....
, Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms , composer and pianist, was one of the leading musicians of the Romantic music. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene....
(who reputedly fell asleep during Liszt's performance of the work at their first meeting), and the pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein

Anton Rubinstein

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein was a Russian pianist, composer and Conducting. As a pianist he was regarded as a rival of Franz Liszt, and he ranks amongst the great keyboard virtuosos....
. However, the sonata drew an enthusiastic compliment from Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, Conducting, theatre director and essayist, primarily known for his operas . Unlike most other great opera composers, Wagner wrote both the scenario and libretto for his works....
. The German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
newspaper Nationalzeitung referred to it as "an invitation to hissing and stomping". The sonata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1854. It was dedicated to Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann, sometimes given as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is one of the most famous Romantic music composers of the 19th century....
, in return for Schumann's dedication of his Fantasia in C, Op.17 (1836) to Liszt.

Yundi Li, a famous classical pianist said about this piece (after he played it in a Liszt competition in the Netherlands, when he was 16): "This is a piece that includes everything of piano playing in it - technique, passion, emotion, and structure. It is a long 30 minutes, and you have to know how to hold it together. I feel I have grown up with this piece, and through it. Already it is different from the recording, because I have had more experiences in my life; I play it with my heart, with how I feel."

Composition

The sonata is notable for being constructed from a small number of motivic elements that are woven into an enormous musical architecture. The motivic units undergo thematic transformation

Thematic transformation

Thematic transformation is a technique of music composition invented by Franz Liszt. The technique is essentially one of variation . A basic theme is reprised throughout a musical work, but it undergoes constant transformations and disguises and is made to appear in several contrasting roles....
throughout the work to suit the musical context

Music theory

Music theory is the field of study that deals with how music works. It examines the language and notation of music. It identifies patterns that govern composer techniques....
of the moment. The symbolic meaning of the motivic confrontation is subject not only of scholarly discourse. A theme

Theme (music)

In music, a theme is the material, usually a recognizable melody, upon which part or all of a composition is based. It may be perceivable as a complete musical expression in itself, separate from the work in which it is found ....
that in one context sounds menacing and even violent, is then transformed into a beautiful melody

Melody

In music, a melody , also tune, voice, or line, is a linear succession of musical tones which is perceived as a single entity....
. This technique helps to bind the sonata's sprawling structure into a single cohesive unit, although the architectural powers of the musician

Musician

A musician is a person who plays or writes music. Musicians can be classified by their roles in creating or performing music:* An instrumentalist plays a musical instrument....
need to be highly developed to achieve this in performance.

Broadly speaking, the Sonata has four movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession....
s although there is no gap between them. Superimposed upon the four movements is a large sonata form

Sonata form

Sonata form is a musical form that has been used widely since the early Classical music era. While it is typically used in the first Movement of multimovement pieces, it is sometimes employed in subsequent movements as well....
structure, although the precise beginnings and endings of the traditional development and recapitulation

Recapitulation

The word recapitulation can mean:*A summary* Recapitulation , a section of musical sonata form where the exposition is repeated in an altered form and the development is concluded...
section

Section (music)

In music, a section is "a complete, but not independent musical idea" . Types of sections include the Introduction or intro, exposition, recapitulation, Verse-chorus form, chorus or refrain, Conclusion , coda or outro, fadeout, bridge or interlude....
s has long been a topic of debate. Most analysts agree that the development begins roughly with the slow section and the recapitulation with the scherzo

Scherzo

A scherzo is a piece of music or a movement, in a certain style, that forms part of a larger piece such as a symphony. The word "scherzo" means "joke" in Italian language....
fugue

Fugue

In music, a fugue is a type of counterpoint composition or technique of composition for a fixed number of melody, normally referred to as "voices"....
. In using this structure, Liszt was influenced by Franz Schubert

Franz Schubert

Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer. He wrote some 600 lieder, nine symphonies , liturgy music, operas, and a large body of chamber music and solo piano music....
's Wanderer Fantasie, a work he greatly admired, performed often and arranged for piano and orchestra. Schubert used the same limited number of musical elements to create a broad four movement work, and used a fugal 4th movement. Already in 1851 Liszt experimented with a nonprogrammatic "four-movements-in-one" form in an extended work for piano solo called Grosses Concert-Solo. This piece, which in 1865 was published as a two-piano version under the title Concerto pathétique
Concerto pathetique

The Concerto path?tique, written in 1865, , is Franz Liszt's most substantial and ambitious two-piano work . At least two piano concerto arrangements of the work by other composers have the same title....
, shows a thematic relationship to both the Sonata and the later Faust Symphony

Faust Symphony

A Faust Symphony in three character pictures , List of compositions by Franz Liszt , or simply the "Faust Symphony", was written by Hungary composer Franz Liszt and was inspired by Johann von Goethe's drama, Goethe's Faust....
.

The quiet ending of the sonata may have been an afterthought; the original manuscript which is available in the The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
, contains a crossed-out ending section which would have ended the work loudly instead.

Sources

Szasz, Tibor. “Liszt’s Symbols for the Divine and Diabolical: Their Revelation of a Program in the B Minor Sonata.” Journal of the American Liszt Society, 15 (1984): 39-95.

External links

- Free Score