Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 03/25/2015, uploaded on 07/30/2015

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Prokofiev's 'War Sonatas' (Nos. 6-8) comprise ten separate movements which Prokofiev conceived in 1939. He originally worked on them at the same time as composing his Fifth Symphony. This was just as the Second World War started in September 1939, although Russia's entry into the fray did not actually occur until August 1941, with Hitler’s invasion of Russia.

Though none of the Sonatas are explicitly programmatic (with the possible exception of the second movement of the Seventh), the horrors of war are nowhere as apparent as in the first movement of the Sixth Sonata, right from the barbaric march that opens the work. Dissonant harmonies abound, the rhythms are harsh and angular, and Prokofiev seems to revel in the most aggressive sounds he can draw from the piano, up to several clusters of notes which are to be played col pugno (‘with the fist’), and which startlingly resemble the sound of dropping bombs. In contrast, the second subject is lyrical, resembling a distant folk song, though this mood is cut short by alarm bells.

The second movement, occupying the scherzo slot of the traditional four-movement cycle, is sharp and jumpy, a quick march with a long, somewhat-hard-to-follow melodic line (it shifts quite often to the inner voices), interspersed at irregular intervals with accents which help keep off any possible symmetry or squareness.  The third and fourth movements are more traditional in their harmonic language (with the exception of the wild and chaotic coda at the end of the sonata). The third is a slow waltz – indeed, the tempo marking asks for Tempo di valzer lentissimo ('as slow as possible waltz tempo') – with rich, almost lush harmonies and a slightly eerie, slow-motion elegance.

The fourth, a more complex movement, begins as a typical Prokofiev finale – fast and light-fingered – with an unexpectedly sweet bridge section and a much harsher, insistent second subject. But then, instead of a development, Prokofiev reminisces on the main theme of the first movement – but what a transformation! Slowly seeping harmonies do gradually bring back some of the harshness of the original theme, before leading into the recapitulation. Towards the end, things grind to a halt and we begin one last gradual climb in speed and volume, one which leads into a real frenzy of a coda. A new motif of four repeated notes suddenly appears here, its fast repetitions in different voices resembling a machine-gun fire exchange, and thus the sonata ends, after one final, triumphant, appearance of the barbaric march which opened the work.

© Boris Giltburg, 2012

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Piano Sonata No. 6 in A major    Sergei Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev began his Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Piano Sonatas in 1939. The composer had the habit of assigning opus numbers to his works immediately upon starting them, and these three sonatas appear consecutively as his opp. 82, 83, and 84. Each sonata, however, took progressively longer for the composer to finish. While the Sixth Sonata was completed the following year, the Seventh was not finished until 1942, and the Eighth until 1944.

Collectively, the these sonatas have become known as the War Sonatas because their period of composition overlaps with the years of World War II, though technically, the Sixth was completed before the Soviet Union was drug into the conflict by Nazi Germany’s ruthless invasion in 1941. The epithet is perhaps somewhat fitting as these sonatas indulge in darker ironies and possess a profound sense of tragedy that would temper many of the composer’s later works. Certainly, one can find in them the emotional outpourings of a composer whose world is engulfed in war. However, the composition of these sonatas followed a particularly tragic story that had little to do with the war.

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. It was soon after this official requirement to feign joy and admiration for Stalin that Prokofiev began the War Sonatas. Thus, in this light, the Sonatas appear more as critiques of a brutal and oppressive government, particularly given that the Sixth was completed before the war had come to Prokofiev’s homeland.

The Sixth Sonata in A major is the largest, as well as most emotionally charged and tumultuous of Prokofiev’s piano sonatas. Spanning four movements, the sonata opens with a principal motif that simultaneously outlines both the chords of A major and A minor. Immediately, the sonata is thrown into an unsettled state by the juxtaposition of major and minor modes. Following this thunderous movement is an Allegretto scherzo-like movement that attempts in vain to capture a lighter mood. The third movement takes on the semblance of the waltz, but is overpowered by the dismal shadows cast by the previous movements. Lastly, the Finale returns to the tortured emotions of the first movement and works to completion its biting modal conflict.     Joseph DuBose

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.