Piano Sonata in B minor (Liszt)

The Piano Sonata in B minor (Klaviersonate h-moll), S. 178, is a single-movement work for piano by Franz Liszt. He finished it in 1853 while living in Weimar, Germany, and it was published the following year, with its first performance taking place in 1857. Liszt dedicated the sonata to Robert Schumann, reciprocating Schumann’s earlier dedication of his Fantasie in C major, Op. 17. A typical performance runs about 30 minutes.

Liszt’s manuscript notes the completion date as 2 February 1853, though he had sketched an earlier version by 1849. By this stage, his career as a touring virtuoso had largely ended, influenced by Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who encouraged him to focus on composition. He settled in Weimar in 1848, devoting himself to writing music and living comfortably, performing only when he chose to, not out of financial need.

The dedication to Schumann was a return gesture for Schumann’s dedication of his Fantasie in C major to Liszt. A copy of the sonata reached Schumann’s home in May 1854, after he had entered the Endenich sanatorium. Clara Schumann, despite being married to Robert, never performed the piece; scholar Alan Walker notes she considered it “merely a blind noise.”

No other work by Liszt has drawn as much scholarly attention as this sonata, sparking many divergent theories from admirers seeking hidden meanings. Some interpret it as a musical portrait of the Faust legend, with themes representing Faust, Gretchen, and Mephistopheles. Others view it as autobiographical, reflecting Liszt’s inner conflicts. Another theory links it to the divine and diabolical, drawing on the Bible and John Milton’s *Paradise Lost*. Some see it as an allegory set in the Garden of Eden, with themes for God, Lucifer, the Serpent, Adam, and Eve. A contrasting view holds that it has no programmatic allusions, existing purely as expressive form with no meaning beyond itself.

The work’s complexity means no single analytical interpretation has gained wide acceptance. Some analysts suggest it contains four movements without breaks, overlaid with a large sonata form structure, though the exact boundaries of the development and recapitulation remain debated. Others propose a three-movement form, an extended one-movement sonata form, or a rotational three-movement structure with a double exposition and recapitulation.

Though distinct sections—allegro, adagio, scherzo, and finale—are combined into one, the entire piece fits within an overarching sonata form of exposition, development, and recapitulation. Liszt is said to have created a sonata within a sonata, a key part of its uniqueness, and he used thematic material economically. The first page introduces three motive ideas that generate nearly everything that follows, with these ideas transformed throughout. The first theme is a descending scale marked *Lento assai*, carrying an ominous undertow, reappearing at crucial points, especially in the coda. After this, the time signature shifts from 4/4 to *Alla breve*, and a second theme, *Allegro energico*, appears as a jagged, forceful octave motif. A third theme follows, which Liszt called *Hammerschlag* (“hammer-blow”) for its repeated single note. A dialogue builds energy until reaching noble *Grandioso* material in D major, where the hammer-blow motif becomes a grand, melodic gesture marked *cantando espressivo*. The slow movement, an *Andante sostenuto* in F-sharp major, forms the sonata’s centerpiece, a fully developed movement in compound ternary form that quickly revisits earlier themes in a display of thematic economy.

The recapitulation begins with a fugue in B-flat minor, which can also function as a scherzo. These sections exemplify classical forms, making the piece one of the first instances of double-function form, where two classical structures occur simultaneously, one containing the other. Liszt had experimented with a non-programmatic “four-movements-in-one” form in 1851 with *Grosses Concert-Solo*, later published as the two-piano *Concerto pathétique*, which shares thematic links with the sonata and the later *Faust Symphony*. Walker notes that the quiet ending was an afterthought; the original manuscript has a crossed-out ending that would have concluded the work with a loud flourish.

The sonata was published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1854 and first performed on 27 January 1857 in Berlin by Hans von Bülow. It faced harsh criticism: Eduard Hanslick declared that anyone who heard it and found it beautiful was beyond help. Johannes Brahms reportedly fell asleep when Liszt performed it in 1853, and Anton Rubinstein also criticized it. However, Richard Wagner was enthusiastic after a private performance by Karl Klindworth on 5 April 1855. Otto Gumprecht of the *Nationalzeitung* called it “an invitation to hissing and stomping.” The sonata took a long time to become a concert staple due to its technical difficulty.