# Chopin's Third Piano Sonata



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I've started to get interested in this sonata again after discovering John Ogdon's turbulent and hyper-intense performance. I then turned to Pletnev's colourful and brooding and somehow psychologically dramatic perforamnce as a sort of Ogdon antidote. In the past I remember enjoyng Gilels's very positive, life affirming take in the music.

So, I'm convinced now. This sonata is a major work of the highest art, a summit of our civilisation.

What are, in your opinion, the most interesting performances on record?


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Well, I like Rubinstein...


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## GodNickSatan (Feb 28, 2013)

As much as I love the third sonata I'd still take the second over it. I'm still trying to find the perfect recording of them both. Slightly off topic, but how do most people view his first sonata? I never hear it mentioned.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

GodNickSatan said:


> As much as I love the third sonata I'd still take the second over it. I'm still trying to find the perfect recording of them both.


Interesting, it's just the opposite for me...



> Slightly off topic, but how do most people view his first sonata? I never hear it mentioned.


It's an early work, and rather uninspired. He wrote while he was student under Jozef Elsner. It wasn't published until after his death, even though it has an opus number.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Klavierspieler said:


> It's an early work, and rather uninspired. He wrote while he was student under Jozef Elsner. It wasn't published until after his death, even though it has an opus number.


Early for sure, but I don't know about uninspired, one can listen to it once a decade or so. I always liked the 4th movement:


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## GodNickSatan (Feb 28, 2013)

It's a little unremarkable by Chopin's standards, but I still like it well enough. The second sonata, however, is a masterpiece. Probably my favourite post-Beethoven piano sonata!


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## Fried fifer (Dec 14, 2013)

I quite enjoy his first. Not as much as his second or third but I think it deserves more respect than it gets. Especially the fourth movement.


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