Piano Sonata (Stravinsky)

This article is about Stravinsky's 1924 piano sonata. For Stravinsky's 1904 piano sonata, see Piano Sonata in F-sharp minor (Stravinsky).

The Piano Sonata, sometimes also referred to as Sonata for Piano or in its original French form, Sonate pour piano, is a 1924 piano sonata by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky.

Composition

Stravinsky composed this sonata when he was in Biarritz and Nice in the summer of 1924. He finished it on October 21, that year. It was premiered by the composer himself at Donaueschingen in July 1925. It was eventually edited by Albert Spalding and published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1925. It is dedicated to the Princess Edmond de Polignac, Winnaretta Singer.

Structure

The sonata is in three movements and should take between 10 and 12 minutes to perform. The movement list is as follows:

1. ♩ = 112
2. Adagietto
3. ♩ = 112

In some recordings, the first movement is titled Moderato and the third Allegro moderato; however, such titles or tempo markings are not present in the original score.

Analysis

The first and the third movement are related to each other: both share the same tempo and both are in sonata form, each with its own recapitulation; furthermore, as for the thematic material, the first theme played on two hands simultaneously at the beginning is played again at the coda in the last movement. The first movement counters triplets with eighth notes, whereas the invention-like third movement consists of sixteenth notes that makes it more lively, closer to Baroque styles. The second movement is closer to the Romantic style of Beethoven, who, in Stravinsky's estimation, was one of the "greatest musical geniuses"; therefore, the ornamentation of the melody is more dense, which is unlike Stravinsky's simple and direct compositional style.