| Piano Sonata No. 2 | |
| Composer: | Frédéric Chopin |
| Other Name: | Funeral March |
| Key: | B minor |
| Opus: | 35 |
| Form: | Piano sonata |
| Composed: | 1837–1839 |
| Published: | 1840 |
| Duration: | About 21-25 minutes |
| Movements: | Four |
The Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 35, is a piano sonata in four movements by Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Chopin completed the work while living in George Sand's manor in Nohant, some 250km (160miles) south of Paris, a year before it was published in 1840. The first of the composer's three mature sonatas (the others being the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 and the Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65), the work is considered to be one of the greatest piano sonatas of the literature.
The third movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2 is Chopin's famous funeral march (French: Marche funèbre; Polish: Marsz żałobny) which was composed at least two years before the remainder of the work and has remained, by itself, one of Chopin's most popular compositions. The Piano Sonata No. 2 carries allusions and reminiscences of music by J. S. Bach and by Ludwig van Beethoven; Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12 also has a funeral march as its third movement. A typical performance of Chopin's second sonata lasts between 21 and 25 minutes, depending on whether the repetition of the first movement's exposition is observed.
While the Piano Sonata No. 2 gained instant popularity with the public, critical reception was initially more doubtful. Robert Schumann, among other critics, argued that the work was structurally inferior and that Chopin "could not quite handle sonata form", a criticism that did not withstand time. The work has been recorded by numerous pianists and is regularly programmed in concerts and piano competitions. The Marche funèbre exists in countless arrangements and has been performed at funerals all over the world (including Chopin's own), having become an archetypal evocation of death.
The Piano Sonata No. 2 was written during a time where the sonata lost its overpowering dominance. While the sonatas of Beethoven and Mozart comprised a considerable portion of their compositional output, this is not true of the next generation of composers: Franz Liszt only wrote one sonata among his dozens of instrumental compositions, Robert Schumann seven (eight if including the Fantasie in C, Op. 17), and Felix Mendelssohn thirteen. Besides the Piano Sonata No. 2, Chopin wrote only three other sonatas: the Piano Sonata in C minor (Op. posth. 4), written at the age of eighteen; the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor (Op. 58); and the Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor (Op. 65).[1]
The compositional origins of the Piano Sonata No. 2, the first mature piano sonata Chopin wrote,[2] are centred on its third movement (Marche funèbre), a funeral march which many scholars indicate was written in 1837.[2] [3] However, Jeffrey Kallberg believes that such indications are because of an autograph manuscript of eight bars of music in D major marked Lento cantabile, apparently written as a gift to an unnamed recipient. The manuscript, which is dated 28 November 1837, would later become part of the trio of the Marche funèbre. However, Kallberg suggests this manuscript may have been intended as the beginning of an earlier attempt of a different slow movement instead of being part of the Marche funèbre, writing that "it would have been unusual for Chopin to make a gift of a manuscript that, if it did not contain an entire piece, did not at least quote the beginning of it", as almost all of his other presentation manuscripts did. He also suggests that a four-hand arrangement by Julian Fontana of the Marche funèbre may be connected with an abandoned piano sonata for four hands that Chopin wrote in 1835, originally to be published as his Op. 28 (which was instead appropriated to the 24 Preludes, Op. 28), therefore raising the possibility that the movement may actually date from 1835 instead of the generally accepted 1837.[4]
Some time after writing the Marche funèbre, Chopin composed the other movements, completing the entire sonata by 1839. In a letter on 8 August 1839, addressed to Fontana, Chopin wrote: