Chopin: Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, (Pogorelich, Fialkowska)

By far and away darkest sonata of the Romantic period. Schumann famously wrote of the , in an opinion still widely cited, that “The idea of calling it a sonata is a caprice, if not a jest, for he has simply bound together four of his most reckless children, thus under his name smuggling them into a place into which they could not else have penetrated.” Even if true, this criticism is kind of meaningless, punishing Chopin for failing to achieve something he was never really aiming at. Chopin was using t