Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor, op. 35
Romantic Sonata Piano solo ~32 min
In brief

Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 moves between an unyielding funeral march and ghostly, sprightly episodes, producing a dark, episodic mood where crisp right‑hand accents contrast with suspended, reflective passages. The main technical challenges will involve Analysis harmonique (3.6/5) — to hear and anticipate harmonic tensions and resolutions so you can shape phrases and plan breaths — and Connaissance des formes (3.6/5) — to map repeats and internal transitions, requiring long‑line shaping and clear voice balance; Pedale de sustain (3.1/5) and Tempo rubato (3.1/5) also demand precise release and touch control to avoid harmonic blurring while allowing expressive flexibility. From the Romantic period, the sonata holds a distinctive place in Chopin’s output by combining dramatic gestures with intimate lyricism and treating the sonata form as an expressive vehicle rather than a strictly formal exercise.

Listen to this work

These recordings are found automatically, and the machine still gets it wrong. One click from you — yes or no — fixes the catalogue for every musician who opens this page after you. Across our 10,000 works, your answer is our only real quality check.

An arrangement or transcription is fine: if you recognise the work, answer yes. Answer no if it is a different work, a different composer, or if the recording does not play.

  • Play — Chopin - Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35 (Cho) [Score] · Benana 3 (the player loads on click)

    Open on Youtube ↗

    Is this the right work?
  • Play — Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 35: IV. Finale. Presto · Frédéric Chopin, Mitsuko Uchida (the player loads on click)

    Open on Spotify ↗

    Is this the right work?

No account is required and no personal data is collected.

Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
59/100
Intermediate
Likely range : 22–96/100
Confidence : 62% · fair confidence
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 6 to 7

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

Does this rating look right to you?

This rating is computed automatically from heterogeneous sources. It gets things wrong, sometimes badly. If you know this work, your answer is worth more than our computation: it tells us which ratings to review.

Add a note (optional)

Your note is not published on the site: it is read in review.

Difficulty sources
Henle Verlag
9
95/100 normalised
Henle Verlag
4
38/100 normalised · 3 obs.
MusicCoach consensus
uncertain
Relative difficulty
39%
Among Frédéric Chopin
52%
Era Romantic
50%
Genre
Movements and pieces of this work

One rarely plays the whole work: each movement has its own level — often very different from the opus's overall score.

Estimated skills
Theory
Knowledge of forms
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Theory
Harmonic analysis
2
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
2
Technique
Hand independence
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

See the whole progression