Liszt Piano Sonata in B-minor, S. 178:

An Analysis of Advancements in Sonata Form

by Dominick Cristofori D’Alessandro

Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B-minor is one of the most extensively scrutinized compositions in all of music history. In the work, Liszt departed from Classical sonata form and thus achieved the most significant formal advancement in the solo piano sonata since Beethoven’s late period. He combined the traditional four-movement sonata into one single- movement work, altered the treatment of thematic and motivic material so that it follows a two-dimensional sonata form, and abandoned the tonal constraints of the Classical sonata. In doing so, Liszt not only dismantled the conventions of the Classical sonata but also retained and repurposed many of its formal attributes in order to create a unique approach to a century-old genre.

Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B-minor is one of the most extensively scrutinized compositions in all of music history. Since it was published in 1854, countless musicologists have eagerly delved into researching its origin and purpose. From its groundbreaking formal structure to its highly ambiguous allusions, there is no shortage of aspects to investigate. Liszt’s departure from Classical sonata form was the most significant formal advancement in the solo piano sonata since Beethoven’s experimentation during his late period. In his B-minor Sonata, Liszt not only dismantled the conventions of the Classical sonata but also retained and repurposed many of its formal attributes. He combined the traditional four-movement sonata into one single-movement work, altered the treatment of thematic and motivic material, and abandoned the tonal constraints of the Classical sonata. These assertions are easily supported through analysis of Classical sonata form, prior works that influenced Liszt’s sonata, and the sonata itself.

From afar, the B-minor Sonata does not look significantly different from other solo piano sonatas that came before it during the early nineteenth century. However, numerous unique characteristics emerge beneath the surface. The first aspect one notices is its lack of a title or program; while it was completely normal for nineteenth-century composers to refrain from giving a solo sonata a descriptive title or program, it seems significantly out of place for Liszt. Nearly ninety percent of Liszt’s works have a title or some form of programmatic description.1 Many musicologists believe that the B-minor Sonata is far too significant a work for Liszt to simply not give it a title. Thus, they have attempted to divulge various hidden meanings. The most common hypotheses are as follows: first, the sonata tells the story of the Faust legend; second, the sonata takes an autobiographical form and tells the story of Liszt’s life and personality; third, the sonata deals with the fight between Good and Evil; fourth, the sonata tells the story of the Garden of Eden and the Fall of Man.2 Other historians claim that the sonata has no hidden meaning or program beyond the music itself.

The second aspect often observed is the lack of movement breaks. The entire thirty-minute work is played from beginning to end without so much as a pause between sections. Liszt is not the first com- poser to use this technique. Before him, Beethoven famously linked the third and fourth movements of his Fifth Symphony and “Appassionata” Piano Sonata, among other works. Liszt’s major influence for the B- minor Sonata, however, came in the form of Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasie.3 Liszt greatly admired this work and was the first pianist to perform it for the public. Additionally, he arranged the Fantasie first for piano and orchestra and then for two pianos.4 Schubert linked all four movements together in the Fantasie and undoubtedly influenced Liszt to do the same. While this is an important structural development, it is not the attribute that influenced Liszt most. Alan Walker, a musicologist and leading biographer of Liszt, states, “Not only are the Fantasie’s four movements linked, but they are unified by the use of the ‘metamorphosis of themes’ technique—in this case, the opening theme of Schubert’s song ‘Der Wanderer,’ which re-appears in various guises throughout each of the four movements and gives the Fantasie its name.”5 It is this “metamorphosis of themes” technique that Liszt utilizes throughout his B-minor Sonata. However, Liszt composes his sonata so that every portion of the work “contributes to two sonata forms simultaneously,” taking Schubert’s technique to another level.6

The overarching formal structure of the B-minor Sonata is one characteristic that makes it truly unique. As stated above, the music constantly participates in two separate types of sonata form. The first takes the structure of the traditional four-movement sonata of the Clas- sical period, which takes the following form: allegro movement (sonata-allegro form: exposition, development, recapitulation); slow movement (andante, adagio, largo, etc.); dance movement (minuet/ scherzo and trio); and finale movement (faster, usually sonata-rondo form).7 In the case of the B-minor Sonata, Liszt composes the four- movement form as follows: Lento assai (introduction); Allegro energico (I: allegro movement); Andante sostenuto (II: slow movement); Fugato (III: three-part fugue); Allegro energico (IV: finale movement); Prestissimo (coda).8 The second form, on the other hand, takes the structure of a sonata-allegro movement. Liszt composes the work specifically so that the following sections coincide with one another: (the introduction stands alone); exposition and the Allegro movement; development/ retransition and the Andante/Fugato movements; recapitulation and the Finale-allegro movement; and coda and the Prestissimo section. The concept of composing with two interconnected structural forms is often referred to as two-dimensional sonata form (see Figure 1).9

Figure 1. Alignment of the two-dimensional sonata form10

Liszt helped provide “one of the most successful solutions to the problem of sonata form to come out of the nineteenth century” by utilizing a formal structure that would not be attempted again until Arnold Schoenberg in the early twentieth century.11

Liszt makes his most important effort to integrate the traditional sonata structure with his new ideas through thematic and motivic manipulation. As stated above, traditional sonata-allegro form is characterized by three large sections: the exposition, development, and recapitulation. In their most basic manifestations, those sections contain a harmonically-stable statement of primary and secondary themes (in some cases more), a harmonically-unstable development of new and previously stated thematic and motivic material, and a harmonically-stable restatement of the original themes in the tonic key. Normally, the primary and secondary themes do not return throughout the course of the next three movements. As experimentation progressed throughout the latter half of the Classical era, composers began making ambiguous references to the first movement themes that typically go unnoticed without in-depth analysis. Liszt, however, takes these thematic references to another level by composing nearly the entire B-minor Sonata with three motives (see Figure 2).

12 Figure 2. Motives (A), (B), and (C)

While Figure 2 refers to the three excerpts as themes, it is more proper to classify them as motives as they are quite short and reappear most often in varied forms that are part of a larger texture. They act as the basic building blocks for the entire work. Each of the three motives is stated individually over the course of the introduction. The primary theme of the exposition is made up of both motive (B) and motive (C) (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Primary theme of the exposition (m. 32-33)13

The secondary theme of the exposition, marked “Grandioso,” is made up of motive (C) and a motif from the plainchant “Crux fidelis,” “which Liszt used in a number of other works.”14 This has come to be known as the “cross motif” (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Secondary theme of the exposition (m. 105-110)15

While the main theme of the Andante sostenuto section is new material, the three motives are reincorporated as Liszt transitions into the Fugato section, of which the subject is motive (B) itself (see Figure 5 and 6).

Figure 5. “Andante sostenuto” theme (m. 329-339)16

Figure 6. Fugue subject (m. 460-464)17

The recapitulation begins conventionally with a restatement of the primary theme in the tonic key. However, in the B-minor Sonata “the recapitulation is a highly compressed re-creation of the exposition,” and thus the secondary theme appears only in an abbreviated manner in the parallel major key to the tonic.18 The coda begins with the tempo marking of “prestissimo.” It builds up to a section marked “fff” that concludes with a metered tremolo and rest with a fermata. Alan Walker states, “The dramatic pause that follows must be long—long enough to wait until the tremendous volume of sound has vanished, to say nothing of the emotional tension associated with it. Once the storm and stress have melted away, the final calm of the ensuing Andante sostenuto will cast its benediction over the entire work.”19 Walker goes on to explain how Liszt originally had composed the sonata to end with a “loud flourish.”20 Liszt re-composed the ending of the coda using the Andante sostenuto theme and all three motives (in some capacity). The work ends as it began with a somber restatement of motive (A).

Another experimental aspect of Liszt’s B-minor Sonata are the tonal centers. While a few of the integral points in the sonata-allegro structure appear in the accepted tonalities of the Classical era, the tonal centers Liszt passes through are far from ordinary and thus worth not- ing. The work begins with the key signature of two sharps, indicating either D-major or B-minor. The initial statements of the three motives do not clearly indicate any particular key, but the minor mode is implied. The tonic key of B-minor is only firmly established once the ex- position begins at m. 32 with the primary theme. For the secondary theme, Liszt modulates to D-major, the relative major of B-minor. This follows the typical tonal progression of a sonata-allegro movement in a minor mode—the primary theme in the tonic (I) and the secondary theme in the mediant (III). The path Liszt takes as he transitions to the secondary theme, however, is unorthodox. The transition uses the key of E-flat-major, which can be analyzed as either a chromatic mediant of B-minor or the Neapolitan of D-major. The Andante sostenuto section is written in F-sharp-major. While F-sharp-major is the dominant of B- minor, it would still be considered a distant key by Classical era standards because the tonic is minor. The Fugato section begins with the subject of the fugue in B-flat-minor. This key choice can be considered an enharmonic respelling of the A-sharp leading tone to the tonic key of B- minor. The Fugato section effectively serves as an extended retransition into the recapitulation which appears in the expected key of B-minor. The restatement of the secondary theme is in the key of B-major, the parallel major to B-minor. Liszt stays in B-major for the rest of the re- capitulation and the coda. This can be interpreted as a feeling of stability at the end of a tumultuous and modulatory work that rarely stays in one key for an extended period of time.

With the B-minor Sonata, Liszt accomplished what others be- fore him could not. He composed a piano sonata that continued and surpassed the Beethovenian tradition of experimentation, complexity, and ingenuity. For decades, the likes of Schubert, Schumann, and Mendelssohn fixated on writing piano sonatas and symphonies that were “better” than Beethoven’s. People anxiously awaited the crowning of his successor, both composers and listeners alike. This shallow and competitive mindset should be looked down upon today, as the afore- mentioned composers all wrote music that is astoundingly beautiful, complex, and creative—deeming one piece of music better than another is a flawed endeavor often based on ambiguous personal opinions. That is not to say that Liszt’s sonata is “better” than the late Beethoven sonatas, but rather that it continues Beethoven’s deconstruction of sonata form while retaining and developing some of its most primal features. By composing a sonata that follows a two-dimensional sonata form, incorporates three simple motives that undergo substantial transformation, and ventures into unorthodox tonal centers, Liszt manages to achieve a level of experimental ingenuity that had not been approached since Beethoven’s late opuses. In doing so, Liszt brought new life to a genre that had spent decades searching for originality.

Notes

Alan Walker, Reflections on Liszt (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), 1.
Alan Walker, Franz Liszt, The Weimar Years: 1848-1861, vol. 2 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989), 150.
Walker, Reflections on Liszt, 129.
Ibid., 129.
Ibid., 130.
Ibid.
Jonathan David Keener, "Franz Liszt: The Sonata in B Minor as Spiritual Autobiography" (PhD diss., James Madison University, 2001), 8.
Walker, Reflections on Liszt, 129.
Steven Vande Moortele, Two-Dimensional Sonata Form: Form and Cycle in Single Movement Instrumental Works by Liszt, Strauss, Schoenberg, and Zemlinsky (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2009), 35.
Walker, Reflections on Liszt, 129.
Ibid., 129.
Ibid., 130.
Ibid., 131.
Ibid.
Ibid., 132.
Ibid., 136.
Ibid., 137.
Ibid., 140.
Ibid., 141.
Ibid.
Franz Liszt, Klavierwerke, Band 6, Original-Kompositionen für Klavier zu zwei Händen, ed. Emil von Sauer (Leipzig: Edition Peters, 1917).

Dominick Christofori D'Alessandro is a senior majoring in Piano Performance with a minor in Music Theory. He has been selected to perform in numerous piano masterclasses over the years, including one with the legendary pianist Gary Graffman. Dominick received the 2017 Marion Munson Scholarship Award from the Mozart Club of Wilkes-Barre, PA and the 2018 Luciana Montanari-Mendola Award, sponsored by the Italian Cultural Society of Washington, D.C. In July 2019, Dominick had the opportunity to perform in Bardonecchia, Italy at the Academia di Musica Pinerolo Musica d'Estate festival. He was inducted into Phi Eta Sigma Academic Honors Society in November 2018.

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