Piano Sonata No. 4

- Composer: Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (23 April 1891 -- 5 March 1953) - Performer: Sviatoslav Richter - Year of recording: 1993 Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor, Op. 29, written in 1908-1917. 00:00 - I. Allegro molto sostenuto 06:03 - II. Andante assai 14:31 - III. Allegro con brio, ma non lyrico Like the Third Piano Sonata Op. 28, Prokofiev's Fourth Piano Sonata was a revision of a work composed a decade earlier; both sonatas, in fact, are subtitled "D'après de vieux cahiers" (From Old Notebooks). Completed in 1917, this sonata contains music taken directly from the composer's youthful Fifth Sonata (not to be confused with the mature Fifth Sonata, Op. 38) and from his Symphony in E minor, both written during his student days at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1908. Unlike the Third Sonata, which has an exciting, effusive character, this work is decidedly more restrained, mysterious and introspective. Its austerity is more reminiscent of Schumann and Brahms than it is of the pyrotechnic pianism of Liszt or Rachmaninov, whose influences can be clearly heard in other works by Prokofiev. Though the sonata was written when Russia was under the threat of the German advance in World War I and the October Revolution was imminent, it does not reflect the tension that must have filled the composer's life at this time, since its inspiration belongs, in a real sense, to the first decade of the century. The work is cast in three movements: Allegro molto sostenuto, Andante assai, and Allegro con brio, ma non leggiere. The first and third movements are reworkings of the first movement and finale of the 1908 sonata, while the central Andante derives from the symphony mentioned above. Elements of Prokofiev's compositional idiom, including strongly diatonic melodies, polyphonic textures, and complex harmonic structures, are in evidence throughout. - The first movement is in sonata-allegro form. Both of the primary themes are lyrical and colorful, and are treated polyphonically in the development. - Like the first movement, the second contains two themes of contrasting character, and features broad, arched melodies over repeating thirds in the bass. - In the final movement, some of the restraint of the previous movements is abandoned in favor of more exuberant musical statements, in what Boris Asafyev, a composer and associate of Prokofiev, described as "an outburst of long pent-up emotion." The finale is rhythmically vivacious and marked by accentuated dissonances and chromatic harmonies, and recalls, at least in spirit, the energy and clownishness of the Second Piano Sonata (1912). If the Third Sonata is symphonic in structure and scope, then the Fourth is, as Sviatoslav Richter remarked, "intimately chamber in character, concealing riches which are not immediately obvious to the eye." If the intimate tone of this work perhaps makes it less immediately accessible than some of Prokofiev's more ebullient pieces, it nonetheless takes a place among hi