A relatively short, multi-movement work for solo piano. This genre was especially popular during the Classical period. Composers include Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart.

A piano sonata is a sonata written for unaccompanied piano. Piano sonatas are usually written in three or four movements, occasionally just in one or two. The first movement is usually composed in sonata form.

Franz Liszt's Piano Sonata in B minor (Klaviersonate h-moll) is widely considered to be his greatest work for the instrument, and one of the seminal works of the Romantic piano literature.

Alban Berg's Piano sonata is his only solo work given an opus number (Op. 1). He wrote it during the years 1907 and 1908, but it was not published until 1911.

The Piano Sonata BB 88 (Sz. 80) of Béla Bartók was composed in 1926. Bartók's only such work, it is basically tonal, but uses the piano in a percussive and dissonant fashion.