Liszt Piano Sonata in B Minor
Music researcher and writer Katy Hamilton chooses her favourite recording of Liszt's Sonata in B minor.
When Clara Schumann described Liszt's 1854 Piano Sonata in B minor as 'truly terrible' it reflected an influential school of 19th-century thought (Brahms fell asleep when he first heard it). But for Liszt himself it was his breakthrough piece which established him as a 'proper' composer, one for whom musically-driven formal organisation and inspired ingenuity were paramount, rather than a mere pianist whose music was generated by the need to demonstrate his transcendent technique.
Posterity has sided with Liszt, not Clara \u2013 and so have successive generations of performers, reflected in a recorded legacy that is a veritable Who's Who of the great pianists of the last century and our own.
Presented by Andrew McGregor.