Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 02/10/2010, uploaded on 06/15/2010

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Sonata (1924)         Igor Stravinsky

I. Moderato; II. Adagietto; III. Allegro moderato

Stravinsky began work on this Piano Sonata in the summer of 1924 and finished it on October 21 of that year. This was not his first effort in the genre, but its achievement greatly outstripped the composer's far less rewarding first piano sonata from 1903-04.

Here, Stravinsky divulges qualities associated with earlier musical periods, and the composer acknowledged a debt to Beethoven in this work.

Beethoven's influence is most noticeable in the second movement, marked Adagietto, where the melodic line flows, but gradually sprouts music with varying ornamentation. The first and third movements are related in their use of thematic material: the main theme from the first movement reappears in the coda of the finale. The third movement may be closer to Baroque styles than the previous two; it is muscular and lively, and features a two-part invention. Stravinsky himself premiered the work in July, 1925.     Einav Yarden

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.