Classical Music | Violin Music

Recorded on 05/02/2006, uploaded on 01/12/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Violin Sonata No. 1 in f minor          Sergei Prokofiev

Andante assai; Allegro brusco; Andante; Allegrissimo

Sergei Prokofiev is one of the great composers of the first half of the twentieth century. He wrote more than 100 instrumental works that include two violin sonatas, two violin concertos, five piano concertos, nine piano sonatas and numerous chamber works.

This sonata was completed in 1946, seven years before Prokofiev's death, during which time Prokofiev was in poor health and mostly confined to his villa in Nikolina Gora outside Moscow. The reflection of his deteriorating condition is evident in the music. The first movement is meditative with somber reflections. Prokofiev himself described the end of this movement as "the wind in a graveyard". The second movement follows in relentless bombardment and energetic outbursts. The third movement on the contrary is very dreamy and magical, but it is once again ruptured by the strong and forceful final movement.  At the very end, the "wind in a graveyard" comes back to haunt us, which seems to serve as Prokofiev's symbolic representation and prediction of his future.

This piece is dedicated to David Oistrakh, who gave its first performance. Prokofiev maintained a close collaboration with the violinist to ensure this sonata's unforced virtuosity. The piano part too requires substantial demands, since Prokofiev was a concert pianist himself. The following quote by Prokofiev in an interview with Olin Downes in the New York Times in 1941 provides some insights of what his music language intends:

I strive for a greater simplicity and more melody. Of course I have used dissonance in my time, but there has been too much dissonance. Bach used dissonance as good salt for his music. Others applied pepper, seasoned the dishes more and more highly, till all healthy appetites were sick and until the music was nothing but pepper. I think society has had enough of that. We want a simpler and more melodic style, and dissonance once again relegated to its proper place as one element in music, contingent principally upon the meeting of the melodic lines... 

What people usually accept as a melody is that musical phrase which above all is not new as to intervals, rhythm, or style. Thus Puccini is a composer considered especially melodic - that is, his themes fall into the category of intervals and chords to which the human ear has long been accustomed, and which it is in the habit of accepting but it is obvious that with the passage of years the recipe for melody changes...    

Yang Liu

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.