Monday 24th June 2024
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Sonata in A major, K 24
Domenico Scarlatti is known to have written over 550 sonatas for solo harpsichord, clavichord or fortepiano, and there is some evidence for a few more. The Presto A Major sonata, K 24 was published in 1738, one of the few published in Scarlatti’s lifetime. The music is uninhibited and rapid with detailed figuration and a Flamenco Spanish style in repeated scales and percussive, castanet-like sparkle contrasted with brief melancholic passages.
Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) Sonata in F minor, K 466
This Andante moderato F minor sonata contrasts with the invigorating K 24 with a more poetic, poignant and introspective feeling. Structurally, this is a delicately woven series of cadences each of which cleverly both resolves and introduces the next with unexpected modulations until the series is complete.
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Waltz No. 2 in C♯ minor, Op. 64
Chopin’s Op. 64 comprises three waltzes with the first , “The Minute Waltz” arguably being the most well known. The second, C♯ minor Waltz from Op. 64 was composed in 1847 and was dedicated to Madame Nathaniel de Rothschild. The music in an orchestrated form is also used in the Les Sylphides ballet. The three themes of the waltz are organised in an ABCBAB structure with the opening A theme, a walking-pace tempo giusto, giving way to a faster B theme più mosso and then a più lento C theme played sostenuto. The C theme is a central breather before the drama of the alternating B and A themes returns to end the piece.
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) Sonata No. 2 in B♭ minor, Op. 35
Published in 1840, the four movement, B♭ minor sonata is the first of Chopin’s three mature sonatas, and is probably most well known because of the funeral march which forms its 3rd movement. As a whole, the sonata has always been popular with audiences while dividing opinions of critical analysis due in part to its loose interpretation of sonata form.
The opening movement, Grave – Doppio movimento, begins with a slow 4-bar phrase followed by modulation to the tonic at a faster pace, eventually yielding to a more lyrical second theme. The movement ends with an elaborate fortissimo stretto. The second movement, a scherzo continuing the pace of the first movement’s coda, has a central lyrical trio that breaks up the explosive and insistent outer parts. The Funeral March was the first movement written by Chopin, completed some 2 years before the other movements. It contrasts the foreboding march with a more pastoral trio. The final movement, presto, is a short perpetuum mobile, often enigmatic but ending fortissmo for a final flourish, “the wind howling around the gravestones,” as Anton Rubinstein remarked.
William Grant Still (1895-1978) Three visions
Published in 1935 by the American composer William Grant Still, Three Visions is a suite of three named pieces for solo piano that reputedly portrays the progress of the human soul after death. The first movement, Dark Horsemen, corresponding to the judgement of the soul, the second, Summerland, representing entrance to heaven, and finally, Radiant Pinnacle expressing the belief in, or the aspiration for a reincarnation of the soul. Whether this romantic explanation is true or not, the work is still a uniquely original and important group of jazz-influenced piano compositions by an American composer.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) Sonata No. 7
The B♭ major piano sonata, Op. 83 (“The Stalingrad”) is the second of three “War Sonatas,” all of which (Nos. 6, 7 and 8) were composed in 1942. The sonata has three movements with the first Allegro inqueto painting an initial mood of suspense and disquiet followed by a less certain meandering section, punctuated by a a turbulent development to a quiet and hurried end. The slow second movement, Andante caloroso, begins with a sad, beautiful theme to which the movement returns at its end taking in a more raucous tintinnabulation on the journey. Finally, the last movement, Precipitato, is a relentless, exciting and notoriously technically challenging end to the sonata.