Reubke - Piano Sonata in B-flat minor (Part 3/3)

Piano Sonata in B-flat minor (1857)

My apologies for the faded and low-quality edition of the score. Some pages are not very legible, but one can still follow without too much strain.

Julius Reubke (1834-1858), like Tausig, was a Liszt pupil with enormous potential who died too early to make a significant mark on music history. In his Liszt biography, Alan Walker mentions that Reubke was once Liszt's favorite pupil and that he was also considered a genius in the Liszt circle. Only a handful of his compositions have survived the ravages of time and almost none are played today.

One might get the impression that there were no other important large-scale monothematic sonatas written after Liszt's. Draeseke's and Lyapunov's come to mind, but I think Reubke's Piano Sonata, dedicated to Liszt himself, is the greater specimen. In Alan Walker's estimation, the Reubke sonata is "a work of formidable originality." William Newman, in his Sonata Since Beethoven volume, also gives a good evaluation of the work: "Reubke's greatest talent appears in his impressively sonorous use of the piano, especially his dramatic rhapsodic thrusts, his ingenious runs, and his stentorian chords." If I could make a list of the top ten piano sonatas of the latter half of the 19th-century, I would instantly name Reubke's. I can't understand why it is still on the fringe of the literature.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• reubke
• tausig
• d'albert
• sauer
• liszt
• chopin
• alkan
• henselt
• schumann
• piano
• sonata

[Hervinbalfour]

Too bad he died before we could have gotten a piano concerto out of him. I bet it would have been a monster to play! :-)

[ReturnOfTheStienway]

Man, this was amazing!

[usernameoccupato]

Who is the pianist?

[Mazeppa1000]

What a GENIUS!!!

[Dante121892]

FINALLY!!!!! THE END!!!!!

[Dante121892]

@JPBerger71 I believe Beethoven started to make Romantic Piano Sonatas close to the end of his life. Because he was born during the Classical Period and died during the early years of the Romantic Period. His later piano sonatas are Romantic.

[JPBerger71]

Nightmares and such are what german morbide romanticism is all about, so it's really OK to look like one.. ;) Insanity, despair, longing, illness, short moments of luck and finally death and peace. If you listen with your heart, you will hear all of that in Liszt's or Reubke's music. :)

[cedricrlongreen]

wow I'm just stumbling upon great composers I've never known about

[pitschi2001]

Hamelin should record this!

[f1f1s]

Reubke sometimes reminds of Rachmaninov (melody organization, harmony), but, surely, 80 % of this marvellous 'gemme aux multiples facettes' feels Liszt's influence.

I wonder if Liszt's pupils tried to establish contact with genial Alkan to confer on rich chords, trans-octave leaps and the usage of cross-hand mid-voice polyphony..?

[Gargantupimp]

He had quite a Melodic gift, some people don't hear it, but he definitely had it, and its quite original.