Chapter III

Sonata in B Minor

The History of the Music Piece

Among Liszt’s many compositions Alan Walker believes that the Sonata in B Minor is the composition which has gotten most attention of all of Liszt’s work. Liszt was done composing and revising The Sonata in B Minor on May 12th in 1853, however, it took until 1854 until it was finally published (Weimar Years 128, 144). He dedicated it to Schumann because he earlier had dedicated his Fantasy in C to Liszt, but unfortunately Schumann never got to hear Sonata in B Minor before he passed away (Burwasser, Nockin and Dubin 143).

Hans von Bulow, who had been a student of Liszt’s, performed the piece publicly for the first time in 1857. At first, Sonata in B Minor was not appreciated by the audience and some of the critics thought it was too extreme, Otto Gumprecht and Gustav Engel were two of those critics. After Bulow played it a few times in different cities, the piece was practically forgotten until 1880. In 1880, Saint-Saens played it, and then it was revised by Bulow in 1881 and gained popularity (Weimar Years 144,146-148).

The music piece

The reason why this composition is important is because it is an answer to one of the issues discussed in The War of the Romantics, which was about the sonata. Liszt chose to modify and develop the form instead of keeping to the form the composers used to compose by in the classical era (“Liszt, Franz”).

Britannica explains the sonata form as coming from the binary form, however, the sonata form is more complex. The binary form has two parts and the form is held together by the ”themes… tonalities, or keys, the particular sets of notes and chords used in each part” (Britannica). The first part is played ...

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...f the gypsy scale, which is used in Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. He was the typical Romantic composer with emphasis on self-expression, imagination and creativity. He improved and experimented with the sonata form when he wrote Sonata in B Minor, considered his best work by many. During the Romantic period the piano was developed which made it easier to play the notes more rapidly, which Liszt took advantage of. He wrote Un Sospiro for example, that worked on fingering expertise.

The romantic composers could look back and see where former composers had been and discovered and with that knowledge they led the way with imagination, passion and improvisation which were the focus in the romantic era. Like the composer Hector Berlioz said, “The prevailing qualities of my music are passionate expressiveness, inner fire, rhythmic drive, and unexpectedness” (Kamien 251).