Johannes Brahms’s Piano Sonatas opp. 1, 2 and 5 were among the first works that the 20-year-old composer published. They were composed in 1852/53, although the Sonata in f-sharp minor was apparently the first of the three to be composed, as it was finished by November 1852. This work has a special place in his oeuvre. Besides its passionate atmosphere, his contemporaries discerned it to be ''serious and dignified in character''. Brahms dedicated this sonata to Clara Schumann, whose husband Rober