I'll limit myself to one contribution, as to prevent indulging in that oh-so dreaded list-making! :P I'm no expert in the field of solo piano music as my main focus is orchestral music, but I must say that one unsung piano sonata that has struck me like no other is Glazunov's First. It's a simply stunning work, filled with a passion that defies any notions that Glazunov was a pedestrian composer. Its melodies have that rare ability to stick in one's head. Of particular note is the raptly beautiful slow movement. This work is probably in my top five piano sonatas, or at least my top ten. Steven Coombs' magisterial recording on Hyperion handles the work's virtuosic demands with aplomb and makes the work out to be a masterpiece.
Does anyone else know this work? What are some other remarkable piano sonatas from the realm of the unsungs?
The Niels Gade Op.28 - though the Blyme performance (Marco Polo) does not do justice to the piece. As for the sonata itself, beautiful themes abound.
I enjoy all three of Korngold's sonatas, but the 2nd is my favorite, and Martin Jones on Nimbus is just fine with me. Like most of Korngold, it deserves much more attention, but alas, many pianists are unaware it even exists. I'm no pianist, but comparing the score to say a sonata by Beethoven or Liszt it seems that Korngold makes extraordinary demands on the player. Too bad he didn't orchestrate it.
Yes, I know Glazunov's First Sonata and I agree that it is a stunning work. I also think quite highly his Second Sonata, the Three Etudes, as well as the Theme and Variations (on a Finnish Theme), which shares with the First Sonata ambition, incredible display of invention, atmosphere, and color. Glazunov was far from being a pedestrian composer; he had much more than enough profundity, lyrical and melodic inventiveness, craftsmanship, and flashes of genius for that (and yet why his music has yet to really "lift off" yields all sorts of answers). Coombs has these works nailed to perfection and with absolute grip and fluency.
Other remarkable sonatas:
*Paderewski: Piano Sonata, Op. 21. The slow movement is otherworldly. Plowright's rendition is superb.
*Bax: First (a born composer esp. for the piano).
*Myaskovsky: Fourth Sonata.
*Anton Rubinstein: Third (highly noble and with dignity).
*Melartin: Sonata I, Op. 111 "Fantasia Apocaliptica"
*Blumenfeld: Sonata-Fantaisie, op. 46 (1913).
*Lyapunov: Sonata in F (a dreamlike development in the first movement).
*Cyril Scott: Sonata in D and Sonata no. I.
*Kabalevsky: Sonata no. II (a very gripping response to the Great Patriotic War).
*Alkan: Grande Sonata "Les Quatre Ages"
Quote from: LateRomantic75 on Monday 30 December 2013, 22:28
Does anyone else know this work?
I have an old LP of it somewhere from the 70s - don't remember the pianist.
Right, gentlemen: some ground rules for this thread:
1. The title is "the ONE unsung piano sonata..." So, ONE suggestion per person only. Otherwise we're into lazy list-making again.
2. Please supply a reason for your choice. Otherwise the thread has little point...
My choice would be the big, monumental Piano Sonata by Paul Dukas.
It is the work of a masterful "builder", able also to tease melodically the ear.
BTW the Sonata is fairly recorded (Ogdon and Duchable among others), almost never performed.
Once I had the luck to attend a performance.
Its length militates against actual performances, as it needs half a concert (but once I attended a concert programming Alkan Four Ages Sonata and the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique transcribed by Liszt - the pianist was Pierre Reach, once an Alkan advocate, also on record).
Completely agree with your words, Dave. I most certainly do not believe Glazunov was a pedestrian composer (apologies if I made it sound that way in my OP), but was just saying that some have expressed that opinion, which I cannot understand. Great list BTW. Another piano sonata I love that hasn't been mentioned yet is Godowsky's, an epic work rather similar to the Paderewski. Hamelin plays the heck out of it!
I seem to remember a story about a Russian student whose teacher insisted he play the Glazunov 1st Sonata in his final recital which he grudgingly did only to play the first few minutes then stop, stand up and announce "and so on for the next half an hour".
I can't bring to mind where I read it and I was so bemused as I loved both of the Glazunov sonatas. Does anyone have any better recollection of the story than I? Names even??
Rob
well I have one I came across on youtube and thought was Good :D by Bernard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer (1888-1953) Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 23 .... I personally never heard from him until I came across this recording the link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgHeiTA0jQI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgHeiTA0jQI) ... I'm bad at describing the music :'( sorry folks .. that's why I just included the link . Ok it might not be a Classic or a super Must hear, but it's ok, I might be going on a limb by posting this since it was published in 1926 I only heard it twice. Just some food for thought.
1. Tema: Largement e Maestoso - Var. 1 - 5
2. Allegretto (8:16)
3. Allegro moderato (12:21)
the Meyer score is oddly not among his scores yet available on IMSLP, btw (though two violin sonatas, a string quartet and a cello sonata are (http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Sigtenhorst_Meyer,_Bernhard_van_den).)
BTW the autograph of his op.23 piano sonata (described briefly at entry 116/1 of the (first of nine pages of the) list linked to from the page here (http://www.nederlandsmuziekinstituut.nl/en/collections/476)), at the Netherlands Music Institute, also has the date 1926, so it was also composed, as well as published (presumably?), in that year. (B kl. t. - B-flat minor. Nice key, that...)
Quote from: LateRomantic75 on Tuesday 31 December 2013, 17:59
Completely agree with your words, Dave. I most certainly do not believe Glazunov was a pedestrian composer (apologies if I made it sound that way in my OP), but was just saying that some have expressed that opinion, which I cannot understand. Great list BTW. Another piano sonata I love that hasn't been mentioned yet is Godowsky's, an epic work rather similar to the Paderewski. Hamelin plays the heck out of it!
Hi,
Thanks for the compliment (on my list). I was actually agreeing with you on the qualities of Glazunov's music. In a sense, I can see why people would express that opinion (of him being pedestrian). Sometimes the great Russian could be pretty facile; there are instances where he could have done more with his ideas than confining them within the bounds of academic (or traditional) decorum. But when his music reaches exalted heights, it truly does (and in numerous occasions).
Godowski's Sonata is truly worthy of mention (I have not listened to it for a while). Alberto mentioned Dukas and I wonder how I managed to overlook that stirring work. :o
Quote from: Gauk on Tuesday 31 December 2013, 08:15
Quote from: LateRomantic75 on Monday 30 December 2013, 22:28
Does anyone else know this work?
I have an old LP of it somewhere from the 70s - don't remember the pianist.
Leslie Howard maybe (Pearl)?
I rather hope that someone will eventually record the Dreyschock Sonata Op.30.
Broadly along the same lines as the recently recorded Op.27, but to me, more difficult. Standard Dreyschock fare of repeated notes, left hand thirds (yuck), huge jumps, crashing chords, with some melodic cantabile moments to give the pianist a rest. Leaves the octave fireworks until the end.
Whoever records this will feel like their forearms have been through 5 sets with Federer.
Thal
In my opinion that'd be Medtner's "Night Wind" sonata (1910/11), especially in the right hands. (Having heard - and re-heard, and re-heard, and been compelled by - what Ogdon made of it in what seems to be a cut version, though that comes in at much under the usual 30-35 minutes...)
One or two (or three) movements (depending on who you ask; the formal structure also depends on whose description you're reading- this is not the only piece of which this is true- they're probably several of them accurate descriptions, too), and possibly, too, somewhat inspired by Rachmaninoff works like the latter's first piano sonata of two/three years earlier (or maybe not). And to my ears anyway very powerful stuff and an exemplar of the Romantic piano sonata, with a poetic motif (after Tyutchev), several basic motifs which one can hear practically everywhere in the work but no feeling (in the best performances) of restraint (certainly not restraint caused by formal problems or the musical material, or any other kinds; or emotional restraint- it can be an exhausting half-hour-odd.)
Yes, the Dukas and Medtner (Night Wind) sonatas are fantastic, and close seconds to the Glazunov for me. Another favorite of mine is Howard Hanson's brief but compelling Piano Sonata in A minor, in the composer's signature richly romantic style.
I agree that the Dreyschock Op. 30 is a "scary" piece for any pianist. I have a copy of the music and would love to hear it played really well - talk about hands and arms flying!
Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Wednesday 01 January 2014, 22:22
I agree that the Dreyschock Op. 30 is a "scary" piece for any pianist.
There are just so many places where one (or should or say I) could lose it completely. I guess it could be played "safe", but that would be entirely missing the point.
Thal
For me it has to be Benjamin Dale's sonata from 1905, I first heard this in the 1980's and played it a lot and then forgot about it. More recently I have bought the version with Mark Bebbington playing and have returned to that recording quite a few times. I think it is the Straussian chromaticism that attracts me to it plus a performance which I like.
That's a very fine sonata, Giles. Also deserving of mention are Edward MacDowell's four epic sonatas, especially the atmospheric and dramatically charged Third (Norse) and Fourth (Keltic).
In retrospect, if Rachmaninov's First Sonata could qualify as "unsung", I would have nominated it over the Glazunov. It's certainly the equal of his much more famous Second Sonata in its blazing passion and monumentality.
Medtner's "Night Wind" sonata (1910/11), is especially a fine piece, although the problem is that my mind tends to wander about midway in it. The writing is rather too dense for me. But I do like the "Sonata-reminiscenza" in A minor a good deal more for its reflectiveness (Irina Ossipova under Arte Nova strikes the perfect tempo and tone for my taste).
Rachmaninoff's arresting First Sonata ought to be better known, but no way would I put that above Glazunov's. But the Dale piece I got to get into again. Turina's Sonata romántica & Sonata Fantasíais are worthy mentions in my book.
Dave- re Medtner Night Wind: that's one reason I'm still hoping to hear an (uncut?) (and commercially available, preferably, I guess) version of the sonata at least as good as Ogdon's, whose account is one of the few that doesn't do that to me; but when it is played much more than just well enough, I can hardly help but think it deserves inclusion on this list and as the only work I should include on it (even though such a performance/recording is rare).
I'll give the Glazunov another try too and see if I can overcome my skepticism (for all that I rate the composer).
I have Milne's recording of Medtner's work and find it well done (though perhaps Hamelin's approach might alter my view of the work in a more positive (or welcoming) light given the chance to hear it).
Please let us know what you think of Glazunov's Sonata (I for one am curious). Listening to Rachmaninoff's First last night, I kind of see where LateRomantic75 was coming from. Rachmaninoff can be mawkish in places, but brother (or sister), he is brilliant, and not in anyway that's superficial or facile (although the variation second movement of Trio Élègiaque is pretty dull, but that's perhaps another topic) .
That said, I look over the list of Romantic-era/slightly-extended-Romantic-era piano sonatas - even just among the sublist of those uploaded to IMSLP (using the category walker to narrow things down a bit there from just the Sonatas category) - that I don't yet know, that I haven't yet heard, and consider which of them might yet, sometime, if I'm lucky enough to hear it, --- if not usurp the crowns off my favorite sonatas sung and unsung for the piano, but challenge them far better than I suppose sound unheard. Such a pleasantly long list of possible discoveries one hopes to be able to make... apologies again for basically contentless digression.
Definitely Medtner's Op.25 No.2 "Night Wind". I think it's a crystal clear piece of writing; the motives are laid out plainly on the first page, and then subjected to ceaselessly inspired development throughout the two movements. What might confuse some is that the two movements both have the weight of a traditional first movement sonata form. Both movements use the same material, but while the composer takes that material in all new directions in the second movement, the material's derivation is always recognizable. For me it is riveting from beginning to end, the composer's imagination being a thing of wonder.
Also, Glazunov No.2, and Myaskovsky's 2nd and 3rd Sonatas.
It is very difficult for me to settle on just ONE sonata on this thread, but having thought long and hard, I would nominate Stenhammar's wonderful G minor work of 1890! This is a most accomplished attempt for a 19 year old and, in my opinion, offers much from someone yet so young! The opening statement in the first movement makes a wonderful sweeping statement, full of passion and drama, which is well-contrasted to the much more relaxed second subject. The fiery tension in the coda makes an exciting finish (quite a challenge from a performer's viewpoint, speaking from experience!). The second movement is a rather exquisite tone poem, full of Nordic colour, and manages to maintain its distance from Grieg etc. Perhaps the Scherzo movement is slightly weaker musically (I don't think so), but the finale again perfectly conveys a fine balance between Stenhammar's Nordic melancholy, as demonstrated in the opening tenor melody, and the more affirmative material he later introduces. The rather spectacular and hectic coda provides a strong finish - no chance at all of a weak 4th movement as can be the case with some of the lesser-knowns!
Having performed this work a number of times now (over the past 25 years!), I have to say this has always been well-received, and is good music!
I want to mention Frank Bridge's amazing Piano Sonata, a riveting, searing composition that was the first manifestation of the composer's advanced mature style. Except I'm unsure how unsung Bridge is now. When I began playing his violin sonata in the late 80's it was a different story.
...and the Bridge is outside our remit - sorry! (Amazing piece that it is.)
Szymanowski: Piano Sonata No. 2
Pourquoi?
Wilhelm Berger wrote a piano sonata that distills what I find best in late 19th-century German romanticism: heroic high spirits (mvmt 1), profoundly inward spirituality (mvmt 2), and richly varied playfulness of the kind one finds in the finale of Brahms's PC 2 (mvmt 3).
Fascinating. Have you actually heard it or did you read the score?
Expliquez, s'il vous plaît!
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 13 January 2014, 11:04
Expliquez, s'il vous plaît!
I would have thought - or at the very least hoped - that the work would "explain" itself in terms of its "must hear" qualities; it dates from around the time of the composer's fine and also rather underperformed second symphony and shares some characteristics with it.
Well, I'm sure it does explain itself when one hears it - but for those who don't possess the piece, further explanation is usually very helpful. Thanks, then, for setting the piece in context.
Ahinton:
"it dates from around the time of the composer's fine and also rather underperformed second symphony"
Actually... erm... not really. It comes from around the time of the original version of that symphony. I'm not sure if anyone knows to what extent that symphony was revised decades later, and revision can be minor, or it can be thoroughgoing. The only published version, the only version we ever hear, is the revised version. I agree that the second sonata is rather similar, formally especially, with its fine, unstable chromatic, sort-of-Regerish and exciting first movement and the contrasting (and, I think, also exciting) finale - but the symphony has, as I recall (will listen again soon) some significant differences too that might result from that revision.
Well, that's more or less what I meant, actually. The symphony was composed at around the same time as the sonata but most of the revisions were made with the help of his friend Gregorz Fitelberg (who had conducted its première) some two decades later. I do not have the precise details of the differences to hand but, according to Jim Samson (The Music of Szymanowski; Kahn & Averill, London, 1980, p.58), "most of the revisions concerned orchestration, but there were some structural changes, notably the removal of an entire variation from the second movement", to which statement he appends the footnote "Szymanowski approved Fitelberg's mnor revisions to the orchestration of the first movement but died before the other movements were completed".
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 13 January 2014, 14:47
Well, I'm sure it does explain itself when one hears it - but for those who don't possess the piece, further explanation is usually very helpful. Thanks, then, for setting the piece in context.
Szymanowski's three piano sonatas are very different from one another in character, coming as they do from distinctly contrasting periods of his sadly all too short creative life, although the one thing that they all have in common is that they each conclude with a fugue; those of the second and third sonats have quite quirky but highly effective subjects. The first sonata is a product of the composer's early days and displays its immature clumsiness rather too obviously. The second represents a great advance on it, with its turbulent, passionate and finely wrought first movement followed by a delightfully imaginative set of variations (as in the second symphony) that then lead without a break to the fugue that ends with a massively triumphant coda; the principal influences on it are Richard Strauss, Max Reger and Joseph Marx, but his own distinct character and persona are already making their marks in ths work. The third would appear to be outside the scope of discussion here so I will refrain from further reference to it, great as it is.
Wonderful. Thanks so much for taking the time to post that helpful description.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Monday 13 January 2014, 17:23
Wonderful. Thanks so much for taking the time to post that helpful description.
You're very welcome - and I'm pleased if indeed it is found to be helpful; it's such a wonderful piece that if only I were a pianist I'd be playing it whenever and wherever I could!
Alan: Re the Berger- I asked if anyone's heard the sonata in another thread; I got no response there, either!
Cyril Scott's Pianoforte Sonata number one, composed in 1908; because of the utterly original irregularity of its rhythms throughout, the richness of its pan-tonal harmonies, and the extraordinarily non-Bachian fugue with which it concludes.
Of the third movement, a kind of scherzo, Eaglefield Hull wrote that "It seems to me that there is here achieved in music an adumbration of that phenomenon which Carpenter calls Cosmic Consciousness. It may be traced psychologically I think from the exhilarating effect which Beethoven and Mahler occasionally secured in their codas. But Scott carries it to a higher power. This scherzo is a wild, mad happy dance, but it is a terpsichorean expression on some higher plane than the physical. It has the same molecular atmospheric festive feeling which we feel in Debussy's Fêtes."
I am not entirely certain what Hull meant there by "molecular," but according to the O.E.D. the word can refer to "an elementary unit of behaviour such as a physiological response." And it would have been interesting had Hull indicated which codas. The last movement of Beethoven's seventh is I would say "exhilarating" throughout, so the quality specific in Hull's view to the codas appears to be something rather different.
I agree with you on Scott's Sonata no. I. What Leslie De'Ath did under Dutton Labs in reviving the composer's piano music is nothing short of astonishing (with consistently high level of imagination and artistry). I find myself going back to this set quite regularly.
Rufinatscha's op 18 sonata in d minor. I wish I could have a look at the score ...
~K~
I'm hoping you've at least heard it, then... why do you think it should be on our must-hear list, what qualities does it have? Convince us :)
A great discovery of late for me that would fit this thread is Heino Eller's Piano Sonata no. 1, which has been recorded by Antes and recently by Toccata in their series. It's a huge, highly virtuosic late-romantic work which, unsurprisingly, reflects the influence of Rachmaninov but has a certain polyphonic density to it that is absent from the Russian's music. Besides Rach, I was occasionally reminded of Dukas' behemoth work in the genre as well as Reger (in the more contrapuntal sections). Great stuff!
Re Berger:
QuoteHave you actually heard it or did you read the score?
A friend played it several times and I had a chance to hear it.
I hope to upload a recording some day, when life simmers down. (One thing about computer programming: the older you get, the faster things change and the longer hours you work.)
Melartin's Piano Sonata Op.111 (Fantasia apocaliptica). Dating from 1920, this is right on the edge of our remit in its wildness, but its 16 minutes are over in a flash, such is the way it sweeps all before it. Absolutely stunning.
Many great sonatas have already been mentioned, including one of my all-time favourites: that unique beast by Alkan, the Grande Sonate, Op.33.
But I'd like to point members to the gorgeous, mid-Romantic-era Sonata in F minor by Julius Schulhoff (1825-1898), which has mightily impressed me since I first heard it. Helped, indeed, by a gripping recorded interpretation by pianist Adrian Ruiz, this sonata has all I look for in Romantic piano music: drama, virtuosity, great melodic and harmonic facility and a sense of compositional economy in the writing, which makes a refreshing palate cleanser compared to some later sonata examples.
It's not what many others might call a masterpiece, but it is very deserving of more recordings and performances.
Here is a score-and-audio upload to YouTube of Adrian Ruiz's recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvomvWlgZpo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvomvWlgZpo)
4c
I would also like to add the stirring Piano Sonata, Op.22, by Josef Wieniawski, for mostly the same reasons as given above, although I find this composer's example to be more fulsome of piano sound. I hear the clear influence of Beethoven in the first movement - perhaps his 3rd piano concerto.
Interestingly this Sonata was published in two versions, the first with four movements, the second and revised edition with just three.
Here is a YouTube link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXAtEQ_Llc).
the 2nd definition of fulsome, I assume.
Indeed! ;D