Chopin completed the work while living in George Sand's manor in Nohant, some 250 km (160 mi) south of Paris, a year before it was published in 1840.

A typical performance of Chopin's second sonata lasts between 21 and 25 minutes, depending on whether the repetition of the first movement's exposition is observed.

The Marche funèbre exists in countless arrangements and has been performed at funerals all over the world (including Chopin's own), having become an archetypal evocation of death.

[2][3] However, Jeffrey Kallberg believes that such indications are because of an autograph manuscript of eight bars of music in D♭ major marked Lento cantabile, apparently written as a gift to an unnamed recipient.

He also suggests that a four-hand arrangement by Julian Fontana of the Marche funèbre may be connected with an abandoned piano sonata for four hands that Chopin wrote in 1835, originally to be published as his Op.

In a letter on 8 August 1839, addressed to Fontana, Chopin wrote: I am writing here a Sonata in B flat minor which will contain my March which you already know.

It opens with a four-bar introduction in the relative major, D♭ major[8] marked Grave, followed by a tempo change to Doppio movimento,[note 4] a key change to the tonic key, and the introduction of an agitated[7] bass accompanimental figure; four bars later, the main theme enters.

In the climax of the development, Chopin combines three elements at once: the motifs from the Grave introduction and the main theme in the bass and treble respectively, with crotchet triplets in the middle.

The movement is closed with a brilliant[7] 12-bar stretto which forms a coda of 12 bars, ending in three B♭ major chords marked fff (fortississimo).

[13] Most commercial recordings exclude the Grave from the repetition of the exposition, including those of Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Stefan Askenase, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Rafał Blechacz, Nelson Freire, Andrei Gavrilov, Hélène Grimaud, Peter Jablonski, Wilhelm Kempff, Nikita Magaloff, Murray Perahia, Maurizio Pollini (in his 1985 recording), and Yuja Wang.

Other recordings, including those of Daniel Barenboim, Seong-Jin Cho, Vladimir Horowitz, Julius Katchen, Evgeny Kissin, Garrick Ohlsson, Ivo Pogorelić, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arthur Rubinstein, and Khatia Buniatishvili, exclude the repetition altogether.

[19] The movement opens with a melody consisting of just a repeated B♭ for almost three measures accompanied by alternating B♭ (without the third) and G♭ major chords that ring like a funeral bell.

[20] The trio of the movement, which is in the tonic's relative major, consists of a serene nocturne-like melody[21] accompanied by quavers in the left hand.

[23][24] The first known orchestral arrangement of the movement was made by Napoléon Henri Reber and was played at the graveside during Chopin's own burial on 30 October 1849 at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

[27] For the First Night of the 1907 Proms on 17 August 1907, Wood conducted a new version he had written on learning of the death two days earlier of the renowned violinist Joseph Joachim.

[28] In 1933, Sir Edward Elgar transcribed the Marche funèbre for full orchestra; its first performance was at his own memorial concert the next year.

It was also transcribed for large orchestra by the conductor Leopold Stokowski; this version was recorded for the first time by Matthias Bamert.

[note 6] Kallberg believes Chopin's removal of the adjective funèbre was possibly motivated by his contempt for descriptive labels of his music.

[31] After his London publisher Wessel & Stapleton added unauthorised titles to Chopin's works, including The Infernal Banquet to his first scherzo in B minor (Op.

20), the composer, in a letter to Fontana on October 9th, 1841, wrote: Now concerning [Christian Rudolf Wessel], he is an ass and a cheater ... if he has lost on my compositions, it is doubtless due to the stupid titles he has given them in spite of my repeated railings to [Frederic Stapleton]; that if I listened to the voice of my soul, I would have never sent him anything more after those titles.In 1826, a decade before he wrote this movement, Chopin had composed another Marche funèbre in C minor, which was published posthumously as Op.

[34] 1–2 minutes The short finale, marked Presto and in 22 time, is a perpetuum mobile in "relatively simple" binary form[note 7] consisting of parallel octaves played sotto voce e legato (similarly to the Prelude in E♭ minor, Op.

In this movement, "a complicated chromaticism is worked out in implied three- and four-part harmony entirely by means of one doubled monophonic line";[35] very similarly, the five measures that begin J. S. Bach's Fugue in A minor (BWV 543) imply a four-part harmony through a single monophonic line.

[37] Additionally, Leikin describes the finale as "probably the most enigmatic piece Chopin ever wrote",[20] and Anton Rubinstein is said to have remarked that the fourth movement is the "wind howling around the gravestones".

2 was quick to gain popularity among the public, it initially confused the critics, who found it lacked cohesion and unity, and remarked that Chopin could not quite handle sonata form.

Schumann said that the movement "seems more like a mockery than any [sort of] music",[45] and when Felix Mendelssohn was asked for an opinion of it, he commented, "Oh, I abhor it".

[46] Similarly, James Cuthbert Hadden wrote that "the four movements, regarded separately, are admirable, but taken together they have little thematic or other affinity," and also concurred with Schumann's description of the sonata as "four of his maddest children" bound together.

[47] Franz Liszt, a friend of Chopin's, remarked that the Marche funèbre is "of such penetrating sweetness that we can scarcely deem it of this earth",[49] and Charles Willeby wrote that it is by far "the most beautiful and consistent movement" of the work.

In addition to Chopin's own funeral, it was also performed at the state funerals of John F. Kennedy,[51] Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Queen Elizabeth II,[52] and those of Soviet and Communist leaders, including Leonid Brezhnev,[53] Yuri Andropov,[54] Konstantin Chernenko[55] and Josef Broz Tito.

[citation needed] The sonata, mainly the Marche funèbre, played an influence in a variety of both classical and non-classical compositions written after it.

[67][68] Commercial recordings have also been made by such pianists as Abbey Simon, Alfred Cortot, Daniel Barenboim, Alexander Brailowsky, Josef Hofmann, Leopold Godowsky, Samson François, Emil Gilels, Vladimir Horowitz, William Kapell, Wilhelm Kempff, Evgeny Kissin, George Li, Murray Perahia, Ivo Pogorelić, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Arthur Rubinstein, Mitsuko Uchida, Khatia Buniatishvili, and Chopin International Piano Competition winners Martha Argerich, Yulianna Avdeeva, Seong-Jin Cho, Maurizio Pollini, Adam Harasiewicz, Li Yundi, and Garrick Ohlsson.