The air of heroic struggle resumes in the Finale, which follows without a break. Subtitled Rückblick (backward glance), it serves both as a point of symmetry in the sonata’s overall design and as a programmatic reinterpretation of an earlier movement (the second). The Intermezzo represents still another novel element in the sonata. Wide leaps, thundering octaves and the full range of the keyboard give it an exuberant, even epic quality. Its second movement describes in tone a poetic vision that is inscribed at the top of the page: “The twilight falls, the moonlight gleams, two hearts in love unite, embraced in rapture.” The Scherzo returns us to the bold, assertive world of the first movement. Brahms proceeds to fashion the sonata-form opening movement with the utmost economy of means, transforming and sculpting the highly malleable initial fragment into an astonishing world of shapes, characters and moods.Īside from its grandly spacious design, the sonata boasts other special features. Boldness, youthful fire and sonorities of orchestral proportions alternate with intimate meditations, tender dialogues and ardent lyricism in a grand edifice of unassailable musical logic. “Beaten out of steel by cyclopean hands,” “Promethean strength of aspiration,” and “heaven-storming” are just some of the descriptions called forth by the virile outburst that opens Brahms’ longest work for solo piano, composed in 1853 when he was just twenty. More often than not the theme is presented in those parallel thirds or sixths so beloved of the Italian opera composers, and even includes examples of fioriture (decorative filigree). It, too, offers a melody of great beauty, but rather than evoking an aria, it resembles more an operatic duet. 2 has been called the most voluptuous of the nocturnes. 1– dark, troubled and somber – is clearly in ternary form (ABA), with a central episode that speaks of triumph and grandeur only to lapse back to the morose opening material. As biographer Jim Samson points out, their accompaniment patterns are wider in range than the composer’s earlier broken-chord patterns. 27 are enharmonically related (C sharp minor and D flat major). As the title implies, they are suggestive – faintly or strongly as the case may be – of some aspect of dusk, evening, twilight or the dark night and associative emotions. Twenty-one survive, the first written when he was seventeen, the last three years before his death. During Chopin’s lifetime they were his most popular pieces. All are sensuously beautiful, suffused with elegance and deeply poetic impulses. Some are wistful, some reflective, some melancholy, some faintly troubled and some serenely joyful. The nocturnes are Chopin’s most intimate and personal utterances.

Chopin scherzo 2 program notes