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From virtuoso thrills to the solemn tread of its funeral march, Chopin’s piano masterpiece grabs the attention, says Claire Jackson
Claire Jackson selects the best recordings of Chopin’s ‘Funeral March’ sonata; plus similar works to try next
The composer
Chopin was 29 when he completed his Second Piano Sonata. Polish by birth, he left his home country shortly before the November
Uprising of 1830 and, by way of Vienna and Munich, eventually settled in Paris. Although a child prodigy as both a pianist and a composer (his first published work was a Polonaise in G minor written at the age of seven), he was a reluctant performer and preferred playing in Parisian salons to giving recitals in concert halls. In 1835, Chopin obtained French citizenship. He died in the capital 14 years later and is buried in Père Lachaise cemetery.
The work
Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 in B flat minor
Op. 35 (1839) brings four seasons into one day, drawing extreme contrasts within its compact form. The work is often named after its third movement, the March funèbre (‘Funeral March’), which was composed two years prior to the sonata proper, and is considered as a piece in its own right. The march has been cut and pasted multiple times, and several orchestral versions exist, including two created by ★enry Wood that appeared in early instalments of the Proms.
The Sonata has a whiff of music’s ominous ‘Curse of the Ninth Symphony’ to it: Elgar’s orchestration, for instance, pre-empted his own death, with the finished version first performed at a memorial concert. Chopin made some attempts to untangle the music’s macabre associations and insisted on the removal of the word ‘funeral’ from later editions, but the description stuck. Not only was the piece played at Chopin’s own funeral (surely he would have eschewed such a basic choice?) but it continues to be popular at large-scale services today, most recently featuring in a brass band arrangement at the ceremonial funeral for Margaret Thatcher.
And while Chopin’s First Sonata, written while the composer was studying at the Warsaw Conservatoire, is rarely performed – cast aside as juvenilia – and Piano Sonata No. 3 (in B minor, Op. 58) remains underplayed (in part due to its difficulty), the Second Sonata is firmly established as a classic within the piano literature. It is also an important fixture in contemporary culture: the central funeral theme has become embedded into modern soundtracks, with the melody parodied across various genres and featured in everything from television cartoons (Spongebob Squarepants) to comedy (Monty Python).
Schumann infamously compared the disparate movements to ‘four unruly children’
The Second Sonata was written during a particularly creative time for Chopin; the composer had recently met the French author George Sand and despite both parties being committed elsewhere (Chopin was engaged to be married and Sand was seeing someone else) the two began a turbulent relationship. Chopin,
who had been plagued by ill-health all his life, joined Sand and her two children in Mallorca during 1838-9 to avoid the Parisian winter. After a cold welcome from the locals, who were displeased to discover the couple was unmarried, Sand and Chopin travelled to Marseilles, then on to Sand’s summer residence in Nohant, where the additional three movements were subsequently completed.
Like so many masterpieces, the Sonata was not an immediate success. Schumann infamously compared the disparate movements to ‘four unruly children’ – each part contains independent ideas that work as self-contained pieces. This is in part due to Chopin’s increasingly experimental approach to tonality and structure; he used the sonata as a way to bring together styles embodied in earlier etudes, preludes and nocturnes. In some ways, Chopin’s Second Sonata is more ahead of its time than the Third – and final – Sonata which follows a more traditional iteration of the form. A closer examination of the Sonata’s structural development reveals that the children are more harmonious than Schumann implied. The ideas expressed in the march are echoed in all three outer movements, and the A-B presentation of each section (explicitly in the Grave – doppio movimento in the first movement, and more subversively elsewhere) provides a cohesive foundation for Chopin’s thematic material. The
Presto ma non troppo counterpart to the second movement Scherzo sees Chopin at his best: lush melodies interweave into a unison section that builds in energy until it eventually dissolves, leaving the coast totally clear for the anticipated funeral theme.
The closing Presto movement creeps up on the listener after the delicate, almost lullaby-like aspects of the march. At just over a minute-and-a-half, the harmonic unravelling of the finale comes as something of an onslaught. It is as though Chopin can’t resist the loose thread; the notes tumble into faux disintegration, hinting at that now top-of-the-mind funereal theme. Pianist Anton Rubinstein described the melodic wave as ‘winds of night sweeping over churchyard graves’ – a purposefully insubstantial, yet strangely satiating finish.
The repeat of the exposition in the first movement has caused controversy among pianists and academics. Older recordings tend to exclude it, whereas most modern pianists largely observe the second performance. In addition, there is a scholarly debate surrounding whether the Grave should be included in the repeat. This goes some way to explaining why there is such variety in performance timings, with readings coming in between 17 and 24 minutes.
Turn the page to discover the best recordings of Chopin’s Sonata No. 2