Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric Chopin

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

 composed his Piano Sonata

Piano sonata

A piano sonata is a sonata written for a solo piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, although some piano sonatas have been written with a single movement , two movements , five or even more movements...

 No. 3 in B minor

B minor

B minor is a minor scale based on B, consisting of the pitches B, C, D, E, F, G, and A. The harmonic minor raises the A to A. Its key signature has two sharps .Its relative major is D major, and its parallel major is B major....

, Op.

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 58, in 1844 and dedicated it to Countess Emilie de Perthuis. As his last sonata for solo piano, it has been suggested that this was his attempt to address the criticisms of his earlier sonata Op. 35.

Structure

The sonata consists of four movements

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...

, a similar structure to the second sonata, with a lyrical largo rather than a funeral march.

1. Allegro maestoso
2. Scherzo
   Scherzo
   A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
   
   : Molto vivace
3. Largo
4. Finale: Presto non tanto; Agitato

A performance of the work lasts around 25–35 minutes.

The work opens on a martial note, the heavy chords and filigree in the opening of the first movement giving way to a more melodic second theme, eventually leading to the conclusion of the exposition in the relative major, D. Motives of the original theme emerge in the development, which, unconventionally, returns to the second theme (as opposed to the first) for the recapitulation. The movement concludes in B major.

The scherzo

Scherzo

A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...

, in the distant key of E flat and in strict ternary form, characterised by ebullient quaver

Eighth note

thumb|180px|right|Figure 1. An eighth note with stem facing up, an eighth note with stem facing down, and an eighth rest.thumb|right|180px|Figure 2. Four eighth notes beamed together....

 runs in the right hand, with a more demure chordal middle section. If played slowly, the main E-flat theme sounds somewhat similar to the E-flat melody from the composer's First Ballade. Unlike the scherzo of the B-flat minor sonata (and, indeed, the rest of Chopin's contributions to the genre outside of the sonatas), it is exceptionally short, typically lasting barely two minutes in performance.

Despite a stormy introduction in dotted rhythm, the largo is serene, almost nocturne

Nocturne

A nocturne is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night...

-like; a mellow and expansive middle section, again characterised by quaver figuration in the background of an intensely harmonic line, separates the more cantabile outer sections in B major. It is the most musically profound of the movements (Kraemer, 1991), in terms of a sustained melody and innovative harmonic progression; it rivals the extensive first movement in length alone.

Its turbulent and dramatic introduction–a rising harmonic progression left hanging on a high dominant seventh–aside, the finale, in B minor, is pervaded by a "galloping" rhythm; emphasis in the melodic line on the first and third beats of each half-measure outlines the fifth through eighth degrees of a harmonic minor scale, in this case the F# and B, lending prominence to the augmented second between the sixth and raised seventh scale degrees, the G and A#. The overall melody, chromatic

Chromatic scale

The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone apart. On a modern piano or other equal-tempered instrument, all the half steps are the same size...

yet rooted in the minor tonic, contributes a dark mood to these primary sections. A more triumphant second theme in B major, repeated twice in the movement's A-B-A-B-A form, appears quite suddenly at the conclusion of the first (likewise when repeated); eventually rising during fleet-fingered runs over a left-hand melody, it tumbles back to a dramatic restatement of the main theme in both of its appearances. The piece concludes in a jubilant B major coda.

External links

• Piano Sonata No. 3 sheet music available at Musopen.com
• free recording of Sonata No. 3 by Alberto Cobo