Liszt: Sonata in B Minor

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Aug 28, 1996 - Music - 89 pages
Liszt's B minor Sonata is now regarded as his finest work for piano, and one of the pinnacles of Romantic piano music. This handbook opens with a survey of Liszt's early attempts at sonata composition - which include some well-known pieces that, hitherto, have been unrecognised as sonata forms - and clears away some of the persistent myths regarding programme music in Liszt's output. In the central chapters, built around an analysis of the B minor Sonata, Kenneth Hamilton discusses various interpretative approaches, arguing that the contradictory writings on the subject stem from the deliberate formal ambiguity of the piece itself - one reason for its perennial fascination, perhaps. The book concludes with a chapter on the performance practice and the performing history of the work, which should be of particular interest to pianists.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Forms and formulae
8
Orchestral sonata forms
22
Understanding the Sonata in B minor
28
Programmatic interpretations
29
Musical analyses
31
Text and texture
49
From manuscript to printed text
58
Performances and pianos
65
Performance practice
73
The compositional legacy
79
Notes
83
Select bibliography
85
Index
87
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