Sonata Form

This Da Vinci Classics album comprises some of the most famous and beloved masterpieces not only among Chopin’s works, but also in the entire piano literature. True, piano literature without Chopin is hardly imaginable; but Chopin without his Ballades, his Scherzos and his Sonatas would not be Chopin. The programme is composed by four shorter works, each conceived individually while also being one in a set of four similar pieces, and by one larger creation, in the most important form created in Western music, i.e. that of the Sonata.

Opera composer Domenico Cimarosa wrote nearly 90 keyboard sonatas that, until the late twentieth century, were ignored by musicologists as well as performers. It is easy to understand why, when they are compared to contemporary works by Mozart and Haydn. Cimarosa stuck to the one-movement sonata form that was used by Domenico Scarlatti. There is some evidence that Cimarosa considered using the three-movement structure, but no such sonata by him has been found, nor has there been found any indication that some of the single movements should be combined in such a way.