The Piano Sonatas of Carl Loewe

While Carl Loewe may be unfamiliar nowadays, in the previous century he was well-known. He won praise from such notables as Weber, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Wagner and in Vienna, earned the epithet the north German Schubert. His five piano sonatas, composed between 1819 and 1847, constitute an encapsulation of mid-nineteenth-century trends, such as the musical unification of several movements and the use of a program. The Piano Sonatas of Carl Loewe, the first comprehensive examination of Loewe’s piano sonatas, exposes these virtually unknown yet valuable works to the present-day musician and defines their position within Classic and Romantic styles.