be published. It was also
called the "Funeral March Sonata," a title (unusually) approved by Chopin
himself in 1847.
The original "Marche
funèbre" in B flat minor (1837) was not published until it was incorporated as
the slow movement of the complete, four-movement sonata opus 35. It was,
however, published separately in various editions following Chopin's death, and
performed in an orchestral version at Chopin's funeral.
The other two piano sonatas of Chopin are the opus 4 in C
minor and the opus 58 in B minor, which date from 1827 and 1844 respectively.
Opus 4 was composed around the middle of a three-year course under Joseph
Elsner at the Warsaw Conservatoire. To use the words of Jim Samson, it seems
that his student efforts "...indicate all too clearly that in his early years at
least this was not the air he breathed most naturally."
No reviews nor reports of nineteenth-century performances of this sonata have
surfaced; even today the work is played no more than as a historical curiosity,
or for the sake of providing a complete edition of Chopin's piano music, as has
been done by the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy in recent years. Opus 58 originated
during Chopin's last happy, relatively untroubled summer at Nohant. It
presented nothing like Opus 35's march or short finale to arouse the sort of
criticism directed at opus 35, although there were some reservations.
Ironically, it will become evident that in fact the sonatas opus 35 and opus 58
are remarkably similar in their overall outline.
The second sonata consists of four movements, the first of
which is in sonata form in the key of B flat minor, and is marked "Grave-Doppio
movimento." This is followed by a "Scherzo" in the key of E flat minor, in the
middle of which is embedded a trio in G flat major. The third movement, the
original funeral march in B flat minor (1837), is marked "Lento" and consists
of two statements of the march between which is a trio in D flat major. The
finale is marked "Presto" and is essentially a perpetuum mobile of four groups of quaver triplets per bar, in a
kind of compressed sonata form.
According to Anatoly Leiken, the choice of a funeral march
as the "centre of gravity" is no accident; Chopin was certainly attracted to
this genre.
Even though only one
