The Piano Sonata no. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 of Johannes Brahms was written in 1853 and published the following year. The work is unusually large, consisting of five movements, as opposed to the traditional three or four. When he wrote this sonata, the genre was seen by many to be past its heyday. Brahms, enamored of Beethoven and the classical style, wrote with a masterful combination of free Romantic spirit and strict classical architecture. Composed in Düsseldorf, it marks the end of his cycle of three sonatas, and was presented to Robert Schumann in November of that year; it was the last work that Brahms submitted to Schumann for commentary. Brahms was barely 20 years old at its composition. The piece is dedicated to Countess Ida von Hohenthal of Leipzig. A performance of the work takes around 40 minutes, depending on whether repeats are observed.
