Piano Sonata No.2, Op.35

Sonata · in B♭ minor · Op. 35

Frédéric Chopin 1810–1849

B♭ minor

Key

Sonata

Form

Op. 35

Catalogue

Score

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Themes & character

The Funeral March sonata·Enigmatic finale·Schumann's famous verdict·Composed 1839

At a glance

Catalogue: Op. 35
Key: B♭ minor
Form: Sonata

Movements

Grave, Doppio movimentoB♭ minor

A brief, ominous introduction erupts into an agitated main movement.

ScherzoE♭ minor

Violent and driving, with a tender, songful trio at its centre.

III

Marche funebre: LentoB♭ minor

The famous funeral march, written two years before the rest of the sonata. Its consoling central trio is one of Chopin's simplest and most affecting passages.

Finale: PrestoB♭ minor

Barely ninety seconds of hushed, unharmonized notes rushing in both hands in unison. Contemporaries were baffled by it.

About the piece

Chopin composed the funeral march in 1837 and built the rest of the sonata around it in 1839. The march became one of the most universally recognized pieces of music ever written, played at state funerals worldwide, and was performed at Chopin's own burial. Schumann, reviewing the work, complained that Chopin had "bound together four of his maddest children" and was particularly disturbed by the finale, a whirl of bare unison notes that ends the sonata in under two minutes. Later listeners have heard it as wind over gravestones.

The composer

Frédéric Chopin

1810–1849

Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the early Romantic period who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading composer of his era whose "poetic genius was based on a professional technique that was without equal in his generation".

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