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."