Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 845

The opening bars tell you immediately this is not a lightweight work: a quiet, unison phrase in octaves, marked with a mordent ornament, sounds almost ceremonial before a sudden burst of chordal force pushes back against it. Schubert composed this four-movement sonata in May 1825, and it was the first of his piano sonatas published during his lifetime, under the title 'Premiere Grande Sonata'. The second movement is a set of five variations on a 32-bar theme, and Schubert reportedly said that after playing it, listeners assured him 'the keys became singing voices' under his hands.

What to listen for

In the first movement's development section, Schubert takes the quiet opening theme and puts it through a long, chromatically restless journey that keeps avoiding any clear home key, building tension through distant modulations before a surprise shift into A major briefly clears the air. The third movement scherzo is worth close attention: it uses deliberately uneven phrase lengths that keep knocking the music off balance, then settles into a calm F major trio section as a contrast. The finale opens simply but accelerates into an increasingly combative texture, with a development section where two conflicting themes argue against each other.

Recommended rendition

Wilhelm Kempff's 1965 Deutsche Grammophon recording has been frequently cited as a benchmark, and Alfred Brendel chose Kempff's earlier 1953 Decca account of D. 845 for inclusion in Philips' 'Great Pianists of the 20th Century' series.

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