Piano Sonata No. 2

Description

Piano — The Piano Sonata No. 2 (“Sonata Notturna”) was begun near the end of 1982 and completed in February of 1983.xa0 Part of the work was composed during a residency at the “Yaddo” Artists’ Colony in Saratoga Springs, New York.In contrast to my First Piano Sonata, written six years earlier, the Second Piano Sonata is decidedly unvirtuosic in nature; however, its interpretive and musical difficulties are considerable.xa0 It is in many ways a companion piece to my First Symphony, which was completed directly prior to the sonata.xa0 Both works are concerned with the conflict between the tonal centers of B and C, and obsessive half-step figures which arise from this relationship.xa0 In the Second Sonata, all of the ensuing material in fact unfolds from the half-step motive with which the work opens.The Sonata Notturna is in one movement in what could be seen as a modified sonata form - having, however, two expositions, the second one an ornamented, elaborated version of the first, a sort of “developmental exposition.”xa0 As a result of this, the actual development and recapitulation are rather short.xa0 The second theme of the work is a two-voice fugue derived from the first theme.xa0 In the second exposition an interesting “aural illusion” occurs: what sounds like an inversion of the fugue is merely a repetition with octave displacement; the subject and countersubject being constructed so that the proper displacement of one becomes the inversion of the other.The work’s relentless austerity and sustained mood make any further explication of the subtitle unnecessary.xa0 It was written for and is dedicated to pianist Stephen Hough, who gave the work its world premiere at the Wavendon Festival in England in 1983.The Sonata Notturna has been recorded by David Korevaar for Musical Heritage Society and by Margaret Mills for Cambria.