BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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Discovering Music

Music: Classical

Programme which examines a different piece of music each week

Programme which examines a different piece of music each week, looking at the musical form or the composer's style, and exploring the many things contributing to the overall experience

Discovering Music: Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor

27/09/2011

BBC Radio 3 - Discovering Music, Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor

Stephen Johnson investigates the mysteries of Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor.

Stephen Johnson investigates one of the monumental challenges of the piano repertoire - Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor - ahead of a live performance of by Nelson Goerner.

Wagner was an enthusiast, but it apparently sent Brahms to sleep. These days, Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor is regarded as one of the pinnacles of the piano repertoire, difficult for listeners and monumentally challenging for the pianist. There has been 150 years of disagreement about its structure and its form - is it in one section? Three sections? Four sections? What's it about? Some suggest it's based on the Faust legend. Others say it represents the story of the Garden of Eden. Or perhaps it's biographical. It's one of the most discussed and analyzed pieces of music ever written. This week on Discovering Music, Stephen Johnson gets to grips with Liszt's masterpiece, before a live performance by Nelson Goerner at Wigmore Hall.

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