Frédéric Chopin - Funeral March (Score-Video)

Описание: Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, is a piano sonata in four movements. Chopin completed the work while living in George Sand's manor in Nohant, some 250 km (160 mi) south of Paris, a year before it was published in 1840. The first of the composer's three mature sonatas (the others being the Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 and the Sonata for Piano and Cello in G minor, Op. 65), the work is considered to be one of the greatest piano sonatas of the literature.

The third movement of the Piano Sonata No. 2 is Chopin's famous funeral march (French: Marche funèbre) which was composed at least two years before the remainder of the work and has remained, by itself, one of Chopin's most popular compositions. The Piano Sonata No. 2 carries allusions and reminiscences of music by J. S. Bach and by Ludwig van Beethoven; Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 12 also has a funeral march as its third movement.

While the Piano Sonata No. 2 gained instant popularity with the public, critical reception was initially more doubtful. Robert Schumann, among other critics, argued that the work was structurally inferior and that Chopin "could not quite handle sonata form", a criticism that did not withstand time. The work has been recorded by numerous pianists and is regularly programmed in concerts and piano competitions. The Marche funèbre exists in countless arrangements and is performed at funerals all over the world (including Chopin's own funeral), having become an archetypal evocation of death.

The third movement, titled Marche funèbre, is a "stark juxtaposition of funeral march and pastoral trio". The movement is in B♭ minor and 4/4 time with the trio in the relative major of D♭. The tempo designation, Lento, was not added until after the sonata's publication in 1840. The movement opens with a melody consisting of just a repeated B♭ for almost three measures accompanied by alternating B♭ (without the third) and G♭ major chords that ring like a funereal bell. This melodic device was also used as the backbone for the main theme of the preceding Scherzo movement and part of the coda of the opening movement. The melody following the repeated B♭, is, as Alan Walker notes, "a strict retrogade" of the first movement's main theme. The trio of the movement, which is in the tonic's relative major, consists of a serene nocturne-like melody accompanied by quavers in the left hand.

The Marche funèbre alone has remained one of Chopin's most popular compositions and has become an archetypal evocation of death. It has been widely arranged for other instrumentations, most notably for orchestra. The first known orchestral arrangement of the movement was made by Napoléon Henri Reber and was played at the graveside during Chopin's own burial on 30 October 1849 at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Although the movement was originally published as Marche funèbre, Chopin changed its title to simply Marche in his corrections of the first Paris edition. In addition, whenever Chopin wrote about this movement in his letters, he referred to it as a "march" instead of a "funeral march". Kallberg believes Chopin's removal of the adjective funèbre was possibly motivated by his contempt for descriptive labels of his music.

Pianist: Istvan Szekely


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