Musical Sunday

Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor pushes all listening boundaries: a half-hour tour de force, a rollercoaster of emotions, extremely difficult to play, but also demanding to listen to. The visibly overwhelmed critic Eduard Hanslick spoke of a “steam mill of genius”. At the same time, this work, completed in 1853, offers a series of pioneering innovations. The first bars already contain the essential material for the entire composition. Liszt also plays with traditional forms by welding four movements into one – a principle that Richard Strauss would later use in his Symphonic Poems. But older music history is also present in the piece, namely as a monumental fugato. High time for a portrait of this sonata in Musical Sunday!

Two music enthusiasts take the audience on a deep and at the same time lively dive into the work: Marcus Imbsweiler publishes novels, including stories about composers. Timo Jouko Herrmann is a composer, violinist and guest conductor of the Heidelberg Symphony Orchestra.