An Analysis of the Piano Sonata in C Minor, Op. 4 by Frédéric Chopin

Abstract

"The aura of the composer Frédéric Chopin penetrated the Western European musical culture, touching massively other cultures as well, up to the Chinese one; the certainty through which we recognize the thrill of this aura is mostly due to the fact that ”Chopin’s compositions have opened a new era in the piano’s history”. Being present in the Parisian salon with Rossini and Liszt, the great Pole achieved an organic interweaving between the tradition of Austro-German and French music. The analysis of the sonata No. 1 in C-minor op. 4 builds the core of the present study and relevantly denotes the connection of its architecture together with the set of conventions belonging to the format of the sonata-genre coming from Beethoven. As we know, the Sonata-pattern designed by Beethoven was expanded throughout the Romantic period as well as the conditions under which the aesthetics of Romanticism found a specific corridor reaching its maximum of expression. In a way of an idiomatic, natural model of transmission, the Chopin’s style of conceiving music played its predominant role. Taking into account in this approach theories belonging to the aesthetics field and some theoretical applications with significance for understanding the levers of construction concerning this sonata, op. 4 (composed when the composer was only eighteen (1828)) and Chopin’s approach of the other stages of emancipation within the genre, I will highlight its rules which emphasize implicitly the dialogue with the ”Sonata-Fantasy” genre, as this construct appears (for instance) in sonata op. 58. Keywords: language, two themes sonata, polyphony, form, evolution "