70904 for PDF 11/05 - Ivory Classics

Tchaikovsky composed only two works he labeled “Sonata” and both were for solo piano.
The first, in c-sharp minor, Opus 80, was one of his earliest works of any kind, composed in
1865. Tchaikovsky considered this Sonata a student work and withheld it from publication.
The rather late opus number was affixed at the time of the posthumous publication in 1900.
Tchaikovsky’s second sonata was begun on March 13, 1878, a few days before he started work
on his celebrated Violin Concerto. Tchaikovsky completed it on August 7th of that year and
it was premiered in Moscow by Nikolai Rubinstein on November 2, 1879.
The “Grand Sonata” (at it is sometimes known) is in G Major and in four movements.
The work is unusually rich in musical ideas. The first movement is built up of measured
march rhythms and impassioned recitatives, giving the impression of a greatly augmented
introduction confined within the sonata framework. The march movement in 3/4 changes to
a recitative theme. Elements of improvisation and drama merge in the solemn phrases of
musical oratory. A passionate restless second theme is contrasted to the calm serenity of the
concluding part. The solemn development is crowned by a tense march in 3/4. The same
march motif predominates in the brilliant coda. The second movement, marked Andante, is
extremely poetic. Its main theme, touched by a sorrowful lyricism, is set off by a number of
whimsical episodes and is somewhat reminiscent of Schumann. The light, unforced Scherzo
might well belong to a Schumann Novellette. The finale, however, is dominated, like the first
movement, by the composer’s preoccupation with constructing a large-scale, elaborate discourse.
The Sonata in G Major, Opus 37 closes on an orchestrally majestic tone.
11 Chopin: Polonaise Fantaisie in A-flat Major, Op.61 and
13 Chopin: Waltz in A-flat Major, Op.42
Frederic Chopin arrived almost immediately at a personal idiom that is absolutely unmistakable
– an original style so pervasive that a fragmentary bar or two will serve to identify a
composition as his. With a rarer sense of what kingdom he could make his own, he chose to
write music for the piano. He never composed an opera or an oratorio, a symphony nor even
a string quartet. These large forms he left to others. He worked in a dozen or more forms, several
of them his own creation. Chopin has left us mazurkas, fresh and narrative; waltzes, prismatic
from his alembic imagination; nocturnes, the perfection of chivalrous dreams; scherzos,
tragic to the heart’s core; preludes, Wordsworthian in simplicity and charm; etudes, complete
as sonnets; impromptus, full of life or touched with tenderest romance; polonaises, the
exquisite expression of the pageantry of his native land; and three sonatas, each a tremen-
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