Old forms, new mastersAfter going through a period of pronounced disfavour in the second half of the nineteenth century, the piano sonata enjoyed a veritable renaissance from the start of the twentieth which was due in large measure to Russian composers. Following in the footsteps of Alexander Scriabin, a number of virtuoso pianist-composers, Nikolay Medtner, Sergey Prokofiev, Samuel Feinberg, and to a lesser extent Serge Rachmaninoff, paid homage in their different ways to a genre that was already more than two centuries old, and now permitted the most varied forms, aesthetics, and messages.
Rachmaninoff’s output for solo piano generally shows an attachment to small and medium-sized forms, as exemplified by the Moments musicaux, the Preludes, and the Études-tableaux. But he also wrote two imposing sonatas, the second of which in particular may be categorised among his finest
pianistic inspirations. It was composed between January and August 1913, in parallel with the large-scale cantata The Bells. With his customary laconicism in correspondence concerning his works in progress, Rachmaninoff wrote to the pianist Alexander Goldenweiser on 10 July that after the cantata ‘I still have to find the time to write the piano sonata, which is only roughed out’. This Second Sonata in B flat minor op.36 is dedicated to Matvey Presman, a fellow pupil of Rachmaninoff’s in the class of their piano teacher Nikolay Zverev. The composer himself gave the first performance in Moscow on 3 December 1913. Later, after his emigration, he made a revision of it in 1931, considerably shortening the work, and it is this definitive version that is adopted nowadays.
The sonata follows the traditional fast-slow-fast structure. It begins with an Allegro agitato which immediately displays the composer’s pianistic trademarks, with its lightning runs and its pounding chords that evoke those belllike, pealing sonorities, a true leitmotif, that turn up in the most varied guises in most of his works. But the piece is not striking only for its spectacular virtuosity: the epic sweep, the density of the writing, with its rich internal counterpoint, and the harmonic purity of the second theme reveal Rachmaninoff’s profoundly lyrical nature. And the discourse throughout the movement is organised around this duality. The second movement, Non allegro, is designed as a set of variations which mostly bathe in a meditative chiaroscuro atmosphere, then develop into an episode of improvisatory character. The return of the theme in its initial form leads directly into the finale, Allegro molto. Here the contrasting play is on the ambiguity between fury and cheerfulness, as torrential impulsiveness yields to marked staccatos full of vigour. The end of the movement seems to want to give the work an optimistic conclusion, blossoming in a radiant major mode.
Sofia Gubaidulina, born in 1931, studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Nikolay Peyko and Vissarion Shebalin. Alongside Denisov, Karetnikov, Volkonsky, and Schnittke, she belongs to that generation of the Russian avant-garde which, despite the hostility of the official Soviet aesthetic, began to express itself towards the end of the 1950s, adopting serial techniques and keeping abreast of everything that was happening in new-Western music. The Chaconne for piano, composed in 1962, dates from the period when Gubaidulina was a student on the postgraduate course (aspirantura) at the conservatory. The work is dedicated to the pianist Marina Mdivani, who had suggested the idea, and who subsequently premiered it in Moscow on 13 March 1966. The principle of the chaconne, a dance originating in the Renaissance era, is the erection of a variation structure on a repetitive theme in the bass. Here the theme consists of a sequence of powerful chords marked by a few ornaments, with, initially, the addition of a series of regularly spaced notes. Throughout the work, the rhythmic movement is maintained under very strict control through all the variants of tempo and intensity. The sound dies away, then returns in force; the tempo grows faster, on repeated notes and rapid runs in toccata style ; the piano writing becomes increasingly virtuosic, sometimes agile, sometimes massive. After a climax comes a break in mood, with a mezza voce episode, incantatory and enigmatic. The obsessional repetitions of notes return, and a brief new intensification leads to a reminder of the initial theme, before a rapid, elliptical conclusion.
Another Russian composer-pianist, but one who has remained relatively unpopular and underrated, suffering perhaps from his excessive proximity to Rachmaninoff, was Nikolay Medtner (1879-1951), who composed fourteen sonatas, some in several movements, others more akin to poems and conceived as a single unbroken movement. Among his works in the latter form is the Sonata Reminiscenza, which opens the cycle of Forgotten Melodies op.38, composed in 1918. At the center of a programme predominantly devoted to powerfully built works, Anna Vinnitskaya has introduced a true pianistic aquarelle. Here all is delicacy, fluidity, like the crystalline sonorities of repeated arpeggios in which is set a shapely melody. This forms an introduction whose recurrences will punctuate the various episodes of the sonata before serving as its conclusion. A motif of a succession of sixths centring on a pivot note constitutes the dominant theme, the multiple transformations of which alternate with new melodic ideas, singing like a cello in the medium register, or standing out as the top part in a texture of finely worked lines. A few rare bursts of vehemence and outbreaks of virtuosity only serve to underline the purpose of music whose title ‘reminiscence’ implies an ambiguous attitude somewhere between serene reverie and a certain nostalgia generative of an internalised tension.
Of the nine sonatas of Sergey Prokofiev, the first four date from the pre-Revolutionary period in Russia; only one, the Fifth, was written during his years in the West, in 1923, while the last four belong to the Soviet period, after the composer had gradually renewed his ties with the USSR and finally found himself forbidden to leave the country after 1938. The Seventh Sonata, composed in 1942, is the central work in the trilogy known as the ‘Wartime Sonatas’ (nos.6, 7 and 8). It was premiered by Sviatoslav Richter in Moscow on 18 January 1943. In an article published later, the pianist offered his thoughts on the work’s content : ‘The sonata plunges you into the disturbing atmosphere of a world which has lost its balance, where disorder and uncertainty reign. Man observes the unleashing of deadly forces. Yet all that sustains him in life does not cease to exist for him. He retains his sentiments and his love. He joins in the collective protest and keenly feels the common misfortune. An irresistible racing movement, determined to win through, sweeps aside all that lies on its path. Drawing its strength from the struggle, it becomes a gigantic life-affirming force.’
The Seventh Sonata begins with an Allegro inquieto whose tone is immediately set by the tense, broken lines and the staccato responses to them. The principal section is divided between rapid horizontal lines, colliding chords, and biting dissonances. The cell of four repeated notes (somewhat reminiscent of Beethoven’s ‘fate’ theme) remains a constant in the movement and also appears in the secondary episode, Andantino, which is calmer in atmosphere, though still retaining a strong underlying sense of the ‘uncertainty’ mentioned by Richter. The two episodes alternate, with a considerable degree of differentiation, the first returning in the guise of a development, with a supplementary dose of violence, then serving as a rapid coda after a shortened reprise of the Andantino. The second movement, Andante caloroso, reminds us that Prokofiev, though often labelled ‘barbaric’, can also be a supremely accomplished melodist in his singing themes. The cello-like cantilena, whose tonality is much more clearly asserted than that of the first movement, establishes a mood of peace and equilibrium which lasts until the central section. Here the harmonies and the tempo can be seen to break up once more, culminating in tolling chords like a death-knell, twice interrupted by rapid ascents of the scale. An oscillation between two repeated adjoining notes leads to a short reprise of the opening melody. The finale, Precipitato, with its asymmetrical rhythm in 7/8 time, is a celebrated monument of the piano literature, notably for its technical demands. This fearsome ordeal for the performer’s wrist is an uninterrupted succession of pounding chords, executed in a single sweep without a moment of respite, prodigiously bracing in its effect; music that might be described as ruthlessly optimistic, which throws in a quotation from the first movement, a cyclic procedure typical of many works by Prokofiev.
