Piano Sonata No. 3 (Brahms)

The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 of Johannes Brahms was written in 1853 and published the following year. The sonata is unusually large, consisting of five movements, as opposed to the traditional three or four. When he wrote this piano sonata, the genre was seen by many to be past its heyday. Brahms, enamored of Beethoven and the classical style, composed Piano Sonata No. 3 with a masterful combination of free Romantic spirit and strict classical architecture. As a further testament to Brahms' affinity for Beethoven, the Piano Sonata is infused with the instantly recognizable motive from Beethoven's Fifth Symphony during the first, third, and fourth movements. Composed in Düsseldorf, it marks the end of his cycle of three sonatas, and was presented to Robert Schumann in November of that year; it was the last work that Brahms submitted to Schumann for commentary. Brahms was barely 20 years old at its composition. The piece is dedicated to Countess Ida von Hohenthal of Leipzig.

A performance of the work generally lasts between 30-40 minutes, depending on whether repeats are observed.

The sonata is in five movements:

The first movement begins with fortissimo chords that span almost the entire range of the piano register. A movement in sonata form, it is essentially composed of two musical subjects. The first of these is in F minor, which is followed by a brief episode that features the "fate motif" from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in the same key as the symphony, C minor. After a return of the initial F minor subject, the second subject area begins in the key of the relative major (A-flat major) but ends in D-flat major. Brahms uses these keys in the same way in the second movement of this sonata as well. The exposition is repeated and leads to a complex development section in which the "fate motif" is incorporated. After the beginning of the recapitulation, the piece moves directly to the second subject, by-passing the C-minor episode, in the parallel key of F major, and finishes with an extended coda.

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