Steve Schwartz:

>I propose a thread of really good op. 1s.  Talk about your favorites!

The Piano Sonata, Op. 1, by Alban Berg.  It pushes the bounds of
traditional chromatic harmony about as far as they will go without
spilling over into, for the time, incomprehensibility.

Like some people can remember about the Kennedy assassination, I can
still remember where I was and precisely when I first heard this sonata.
A former medical student of mine, with whom I sometimes played four-hand
piano music, played it for me after I had we had played the Beethoven Fifth
(for four hands) and then I'd played him my own arrangement of some of the
more interesting music (and not necessarily waltzes) from 'Der
Rosenkavalier.'

The Berg sonata knocked my socks off and I had to learn it for myself.

Scott Morrison