Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor Op.35 (4th Movement: Finale)

Description

The Second Sonata is the work that contains the famous funeral march as its third movement. What is here is the finale that follows it directly. Schumann wrote of this movement that it was "more mockery than music" — a remark that measures how far outside the expectations of its day the piece stood.

In B-flat minor and cut time, both hands run fine figuration in octave unison. There are no chords, nothing that can be called a melody, and the dynamic stays suppressed throughout. It races by in under ninety seconds and ends with a single chord. It is often described as the wind blowing over the graves after the march.

The advanced rating reflects the precision needed to keep the hands exactly together: since both play the same notes, the smallest discrepancy is heard as blur. Put unison ahead of speed — finish each hand evenly alone before combining them. And because raising the volume destroys the effect, it also demands the restraint to play the whole thing held back.

Sonatas across a range of instrumentations, including piano parts from violin sonatas, spanning Classical to Romantic styles.