Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 06/23/2004, uploaded on 04/20/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed only two sonatas for the piano—the first completed in 1908, and the second in 1913. His first foray into a staple of the composer’s repertoire, the Sonata No. 1 in D minor, is an expansive work, which in its original form approached in terms of length the vast dimensions of Schubert’s late piano sonatas. However, even in its eventual shortened form, it was ill-received at its premiere. Thus, posterity has since favored the Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, a shorter but pithy work compared to its predecessor, and a magnificent example of Rachmaninoff’s mature craft.

Work on the Second Piano Sonata began after Rachmaninoff and his family left Russia in 1912 to vacation in Switzerland and Rome, and progressed simultaneously with the orchestration of his choral work, The Bells. The sonata occupied the composer from January to September of 1913, by which time he had returned to his family estate in Ivanovka. Like its predecessor, the Second Piano Sonata also underwent an eventual process of revision in 1931, paring away some of its extravagances. Some of the work’s virtuosic passages were tamed and the already terse sonata was overall shortened by some six minutes. This latter version is that which is most frequently performed today. In 1940, Vladimir Horowitz approached Rachmaninoff about creating a third edition of the sonata by restoring some of the music stripped away in the 1931 revision. With the composer’s blessing, Horowitz produced the proposed edition. Though not as frequently heard, it is preferred by some pianists.

Like his previous D minor Sonata, the Second follows the traditional Classical format of two faster paced movements framing a slower middle one. If the First suffered from being dry and repetitive, as some critics expressed, the Second abounds from the first notes of the opening movement with a nervous tension and sense of drama that is unabated even in its more delicate passages.  In contrast to the opening Allegro agitato, the beautiful Non Allegro middle movement is overshadowed by a deeply felt melancholy that works itself into a powerful climax. The Allegro molto finale continues the musical transformation of this piece, beginning in an agitated state reminiscent of the first movement but builds to a triumphal conclusion of pure unbridled ecstasy.       Joseph DuBose

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Piano Sonata No. 2 in b-flat minor, Op.36 (1913 Original Edition)  Sergei Rachmaninov

Rachmaninov started work on this piece in Rome in the spring of 1913, working simultaneously on his cantata The Bells. The sonata's kinship with The Bells is evident primarily in the frequent occurrence of bell-like sonorities; examples of which include the magnificent climax of the first movement's development section; the slow movement's central episode; and several melodic, harmonic and rhythmic turns and patterns scattered throughout the piece.  A. Wakabayashi

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.