As noted in Chapter Three, it was the Finale of Chopin's
second piano sonata that puzzled Schumann most. He viewed it more as a piece of
irony than music. It has captured the imagination of many, causing hosts of
commentators to extend their views as to the literary associations of this
movement. On the face of it, seventy-five bars of quick, non-stop triplet
passages in unison between the two hands with hardly a change in dynamics may
seem like a strange choice for the final movement of a sonata. Modern
commentators have tried to demystify this movement by means of harmonic and
motivic analyses. These analyses will be discussed in due course; first,
however, a glance at some reactions to this movement provides interesting
reading.
Frederick Niecks describes this finale as "the solitude
and dreariness of a desert."
The famous nineteenth-century Russian pianist Anton Rubinstein interprets it as
"Winds of night sweeping over churchyard graves."
Tausig described the "very peculiar" finale as "...the ghost of the departed
wandering about" after the "Marche
funèbre"; subsequently, only two weeks before his own death in 1871, he
referred to it as "...the wind blowing over my grave."
Alfred Cortot saw "...the freezing whirlwind descending on tombs."
Mendelssohn was known to dislike the work, saying, "One may abhor it, yet it
cannot be ignored."
With reference to Chopin's comment that the hands are "gossiping" after the
march, Niecks interprets this as the good neighbours discussing the merits of
the departed after the burial, albeit with a spice of backbiting.
According to Jurij Cholopow, a survey of writings on the
Finale shows that it has been accused of a lack of melody, obscure and
undefined harmony, lack of subjects,
