Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 04/10/2013, uploaded on 09/26/2013

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Though its origins date to two abandoned compositions from Prokofiev’s youthful years as a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, the Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor was completed in 1917. It is a different kind of work from the sonatas which precede it. Instead of the usual lighthearted and comical mood which abounds in much of Prokofiev’s music, the Fourth Piano Sonata builds on the more serious tone adopted in its predecessor and sets out in a hesitant and restrained manner. Prokofiev dedicated the sonata to the memory of his friend Maximilian Schmidthof who had committed suicide four years earlier. Certainly, the event had its effect on the composer, but it is not readily apparent how much it influenced the compositions of the sonata. Perhaps holding more sway over the composer’s imagination, as it would later, was a world at war, the Germans advancing on Russia, and the impending October Revolution.

Comprised of three movements, the first two movement of the Fourth Piano Sonata are tentative, owing more to the style of Schumann and Brahms than the virtuosity of Franz Liszt. Here, Prokofiev finds himself quite the introvert, unable or unwilling to allow the full force of his emotions to break upon the listener. However, some of the restraints are lost in the Finale, which abounds with a rhythmic vitality that valiantly attempts to regain the spirit of his previous sonatas. Prokofiev premiered the sonata himself on April 17, 1918 in Petrograd.     Joseph DuBose

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Piano Sonata No. 4 in C minor     Sergei Prokofiev

Sergey Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 4, completed in 1917, was dedicated to his good friend Maximilian Schmidthof, whose suicide in 1913 shocked and saddened the composer.  This sonata is a revision of a work composed a decade earlier, and contains music taken from Prokofiev’s youthful Fifth Sonata (not to be confused with his mature Fifth Sonata), and from his Symphony in E minor, both written during his student days at the Moscow Conservatory in 1908.  Unlike his other pieces of exciting, effusive character, this work is decidedly more restrained and introspective.  Both first and second movements begin in the low register, their character gloomy and dark.  In the lively final movement, some of the restraint of the previous movements is abandoned in favor of more exuberant musical statements, and the vigorous theme pushes the Sonata to an exciting finish.       Inesa Sinkevych

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.