Piano Sonata No. 2 (Sessions)

Roger Sessions' Piano Sonata No. 2 was composed in 1946.[1] It has three movements:

  1. Allegro con fuoco (tempo quarter note=120)
  2. Lento (quarter note=50)
  3. Misurato e pesante (quarter note = 66–72)

The first two movements each end in a slight pause, followed by a briefer pause.[2]

The opening motive of the first movement, an upward-leaping fourth followed by a minor second and a major second, is related to the major second-minor second alternation of the main theme of the Lento.

The first two movements are tripartite in form[3] while the third has been compared by Richard Dyer to a toccata.[3]

Sessions worked on the sonata in conjunction with his second symphony, completed the same year, and his opera Montezuma, but the latter did not achieve final form until much later.[4]

The sonata is one of Sessions' relatively often-recorded works.[5] Of his others the First String Quartet (1936), Pages from a Diary (1939) and his First (1930) and Third Piano Sonatas (1965) have been recorded as often or about as often.

Recordings

Sources: Olmstead Discography ; WorldCat

References

  1. ↑ The score indicates that the work was finished in Berkeley, California in November of that year.
  2. ↑ in essence they follow each other without one, and in the Edward Marks 1976 score the three movements' measure numbers are numbered consecutively rather than starting again with 1: bars 1-168, 169-230, and 231-404.
  3. 1 2 Dyer, Richard. "Notes to Recording of Second Sonata and Martino Fantasies and Impromptus". Retrieved 29 January 2010.
  4. ↑ Prausnitz, Frederik (2002). Roger Sessions: how a "difficult" composer got that way at Google Books, page 253. Oxford University Press.
  5. ↑ "Olmstead Discography". Retrieved 29 January 2010.


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