Category: Sonata

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Mozart Piano sonata no. 2 in F, KV280

Fugue for Thought

performed by Mitsuko Uchida second movement third movement As with many of the pieces we have discussed in rapid succession, this piece was written soon after yesterday’s sonata. Do remember the statement we made about the clump of the first four piano concertos: with such little space between them, and from such a young composer, I wouldn’t expect to see any large degree of development or advancement from one piece to another. What I do feel like I see, as mentioned with the juvenile orchestrations, is greater confidence. The young Mozart is, perhaps, getting his sea legs, as it were.  … Continue reading Mozart Piano sonata no. 2 in F, KV280

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Mozart Piano sonata no. 1 in C, K279

Fugue for Thought

performed by Mitsuko Uchida second movement third movement   No more concertos for now. Move ahead another year, and our dear composer is now 18 years old. He’d have graduated high school by this time if that’d been a thing, and he finally got around to writing his first full piano sonata. I’m interested as to why it isn’t until now that his first completed piano sonata is composed. That being said, he’d written tons of smaller things in his youth, but his first completed three-movement work for solo piano comes some time after his first opera or concerto or … Continue reading Mozart Piano sonata no. 1 in C, K279

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Prokofiev piano sonata no. 1 in Fm, op. 1

Fugue for Thought

performed by Yefim Bronfman https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/z2EDk2Zsdik&source=uds It’s funny how life is. I’d planned the writing of this piece at least a month ago as a lead-in to another set of works for piano (the actual lead in was last week’s Satie piece, but this one sets up for what is to come later), and it was for a few reasons that now seem… less important than some others that have since surfaced. This piece is perhaps not as exciting to many as his other, later, more substantial works, but in a lot of (perhaps intentional, contrived ways), may have a lot to say about … Continue reading Prokofiev piano sonata no. 1 in Fm, op. 1

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Samuil Feinberg Piano Sonata no. 2, op 2

Fugue for Thought

performed by Christophe Sirodeau https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/zheDyAzSVM0&source=uds So Samuil Feinberg was an extremely talented pianist, known for his transcriptions of Bach, as well as a complete recording of the Well-tempered Clavier. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory under Alexander Goldenweiser, a composer I’ve been meaning to get around to exploring. He won the Stalin Prize in 1946, and composed in his career twelve sonatas, as well as fantasies and other works for piano, some including voice, and three piano concertos, which Wikipedia also notes are not standard in the repertoire… I haven’t even heard them yet. I seem to recall not being … Continue reading Samuil Feinberg Piano Sonata no. 2, op 2

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Alban Berg: piano sonata in Bm, op. 1

Fugue for Thought

performed by Glenn Gould https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/QNk_A4ZoI30&source=uds (also, don’t watch this… just listen to it) Welcome to part two of three of our music-I-enjoy-and-appreciate-but-don’t-really-understand-so-can’t-say-anything-terribly-constructive-or-educational-or-useful-about-so-take-this-with-a-grain-of-salt series. The first in this series a few weeks ago was Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, which thankfully had a … Continue reading Alban Berg: piano sonata in Bm, op. 1

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Julius Reubke: piano sonata in Bb minor

Fugue for Thought

performed by whoever plays it in the following videos: Section 1Section 2Section 3 Julius Reubke was a student of Franz Liszt, his favorite pupil at one point, as Liszt himself apparently stated. It shows. While the previous piece I wrote about is a concerto dedicated to the memory of a man whose life was at its end, and written in his style, this piece, dedicated to the composer’s teacher, shows heavy direct influence from the man himself, even quotes directly from Liszt’s piano sonata in a place or two. The sonata was written in 1857, when the composer was 23, … Continue reading Julius Reubke: piano sonata in Bb minor