Because it is no servile copy of the
Mozart Sonata, the F sharp minor of Brahms is a piece of original
art. Beethoven at first trod in the well blazed path of Haydn,
but study his second period, and it sounds the big Beethoven
note. There is no final court of appeal in the matter of musical
form, and there is none in the matter of literary style. The
history of the sonata is the history of musical evolution. Every
great composer, Schubert included, added to the form, filed here,
chipped away there, introduced lawlessness where reigned prim
order--witness the Schumann F sharp minor Sonata--and then came
Chopin.
The Chopin sonata has caused almost as much warfare as the Wagner
music drama. It is all the more ludicrous, for Chopin never wrote
but one piano sonata that has a classical complexion: in C minor,
op. 4, and it was composed as early as 1828. Not published until
July, 1851, it demonstrates without a possibility of doubt that
the composer had no sympathy with the form. He tried so hard and
failed so dismally that it is a relief when the second and third
sonatas are reached, for in them there are only traces of formal
beauty and organic unity.
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