Brahms Piano Sonatas

[tabris]

What does everyone think of these pieces?  Anyone performed any of them?  How do they compare in terms of difficulty to each other.  It seems that the F-sharp minor (2nd sonata) is the easiest but looks can be deceiving.  Also how do they compare to some of his other works, like his piano concertos or variations?

Thanks

[Skeptopotamus]

The Brahms sonatas are like super hard, especially the third one.  The second is the easiest.  they're in the same difficulty category as the paganini variations.

[dbrainiak914]

His third sonata is a monster, yes, but amazing.  Probably my favorite sonata by any composer. 

[raffyplayspiano]

i personally enjoy the first sonata, but it is very difficult because in my opinion it has many akward parts to play for the hands.

its really delightful though

the other sonatas are good too, but i would reccomend the 1st sonata if you wanted to listen to just one. 

i think his piano sonatas are his most difficult work for  piano solo after the paganini variatons, but this differs with each person

raffy

[burstroman]

They are much neglected.  I would love complete recordings by Leon Fleischer or Radu Lupu.

[mlsmithz]

The astonishing thing in my mind is that Brahms was quite young when he wrote the three sonatas (all three bear opus numbers of 5 or below from a composer whose opus numbers go up to at least 120), and yet they're among his most technically demanding yet musically arresting works.  My favourite is the F minor sonata (there seems to be something about F minor that makes composers write monstrously difficult pieces in that key - Henselt's concerto, Reger's concerto, Bowen's Sonata No.5, etc.).

[apion]

His third sonata is a monster, yes, but amazing.  Probably my favorite sonata by any composer. 

I agree.  The third sonata is a magnificent competition piece.  Definitely one of the greatest post-Beethoven sonatas ever composed.  While I'm equally fond of Brahms sonatas 1 and 2, I really love the final movement of sonata #1.  Simply stupendous.

[jehangircama]

The astonishing thing in my mind is that Brahms was quite young when he wrote the three sonatas (all three bear opus numbers of 5 or below from a composer whose opus numbers go up to at least 120), and yet they're among his most technically demanding yet musically arresting works.  My favourite is the F minor sonata (there seems to be something about F minor that makes composers write monstrously difficult pieces in that key - Henselt's concerto, Reger's concerto, Bowen's Sonata No.5, etc.).

Beethoven's appasionata. and don't tell me that that's easy to play . i've been working for a long time on it

[pabst]

i just can't be enthusiastic enough about the two pianos sonata he wrote after the opus 34 quintet. Every mouvement outdoes the earlier and its so underplayed (well I actually never heard it live). So - 2piano sonata op34b in F minor.  No clue whatsoever about the difficulty tho...