Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 10/20/2011, uploaded on 04/09/2011

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Sergei Prokofiev composed three piano sonatas during the brutal and unforgiving years of World War II that have become known simply as the War Sonatas. When Nazi Germany unleashed its brutal hammer stroke against the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin and his government was forced to turn its attention outward. Restrictions on composers and other artists were temporary relaxed, and Prokofiev found a momentary freedom to express his own artistic voice. Many compositions flowed from Prokofiev’s pen during this time, most tinged with biting ironies and tragedy. On the surface, one may view these works, of which the War Sonatas are certainly a part, as the composer’s reflections on a world engulfed in war. Yet, beneath the surface, it is more likely there were a personal criticism, in the only outlet available, of Stalin’s ruthless and oppressive rule. Of these works, the War Sonatas lie in proximity to a particularly tragic story.

In June of 1939, Prokofiev’s close friend and colleague. Vsevolod Meyerhold, was arrested by Stalin’s Secret Police just before he was to begin rehearsing the composer’s latest opera Semyon Kotko. The following year, on February 2, Meyerhold was shot. His death was never publicly acknowledged, let alone even known about until after Stalin’s oppressive rule had ended. However, only a month after Meyerhold’s arrest, his wife was brutally murdered, and was not so neatly swept under the rug. In the wake of losing a close friend and the news of his widow’s murder, Prokofiev received an official request to compose a celebratory piece for Stalin’s sixtieth birthday. After feigning such joy and admiration for Stalin, Prokofiev set about later that year to compose his bitterly tragic War Sonatas.

Subtitled “Stalingrad,” the Seventh Piano Sonata is the shortest of the War Sonatas. Composed between 1939 and 1942, it was premiered by Sviatoslav Richter in Moscow on January 18, 1943. Ironically, the sonata later won a Stalin Prize. Cast in three movements, two rhythmic and energetic movements frame the lyrical and sentimental central Andante. Of the three, the toccata-like finale is the most famous, which through its virtuosity manages to bring the sonata to a triumphant conclusion.     Joseph DuBose

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Sonata No. 7 in B-flat Major, Op. 83  Sergey Prokofiev

I. Allegro inquieto; II. Andante Caloroso; III. Precipitate

In the summer of 1939, Prokofiev met Maria-Cecilia Abramovna Mendelson, called Mira. The two began a passionate liaison. It is from her that we learn that Prokofiev had been reading Romain Rolland's book on Beethoven and that this strongly influenced his sixth, seventh and eighth sonatas, works that he wrote during the following years.
Prokofiev completed his seventh piano sonata in 1942 and it was first performed at the Hall of Columns in Moscow in January, 1943 by Sviatoslav Richter, who later wrote that he felt the chaos and death-dealing forces in the sonata juxtaposed with the continuation of what man lives for: love and the affirmation of life.
The first movement, marked Allegro inquieto, starts with an opening unharmonized phrase. Before long, two strands of melody diverge, leading to syncopations of greater stridency. A secondary theme appears in an Andantino section, part of a modified sonata-allegro structure. The second movement Andante caloroso is in E major, now with a key signature, a feature absent in the first movement. The singing melody in an inner part, followed closely in the bass, leads to a central section of varied tonalities and textures, before the final return of the material of the opening, much abridged. The sonata ends with a final movement in 7/8 metre, perceived as 2+3+2. Marked Precipitato, the material is dominated by this asymmetrical rhythmic pattern, to end in a final affirmative and unambiguous B flat major.   Natasha Paremski

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.