On February 21, 1842, Chopin gave in Paris one of his last recitals. As was still the custom, he accompanied a couple of friends, one a singer and the other a cellist, to finish with a selection of his own pieces. He still had seven years to live but his health showed clear signs of irreparable deterioration. Two years later, with great effort, he accompanied his young friend, Georges Valentin Alkan, to present a version for two pianos and eight hands of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.
But these were supreme efforts. And naturally, also the production of music had begun to diminish. Let us just note that in 1848 he wrote only one waltz (in B major, without opus number). Only once in the past had he had a year of such scant creativity: 1844, when from his pen came just one piece, his third and last piano sonata. That year, to his further discouragement, he received the news of his father's death in Warsaw. To his consolation, he received a visit from his sister Ludwika, invited to spend a few days in Nohant courtesy of George Sand.
Sonata No. 3 in B minor, opus 58
Although, as we all know, Chopin was essentially a miniaturist, the writing of his vigorous ballades or scherzos must have developed in him the necessary ability to fully undertake the production of works in a genre generally considered "major", such as the piano sonata. We say this because there are those who maintain that one of the spurs for the composition of his third sonata is due to the need to respond to some criticism received by the novel structure of the previous sonata, the famous "Funeral Sonata".
Similar in structure to the latter (though the funeral march has been replaced by a full, lyrical largo), its movements are:
00 Allegro maestoso
09:40 Scherzo: Molto vivace
12:24 Largo
22:40 Finale: Presto non tanto; Agitato
The rendition, terrific, is by the 1994 Singapore-born pianist Kate Liu during her participation in the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.
