Piano Sonata No. 2 (Sessions)

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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

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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". Archived from the original on 5 September 2008. Retrieved 29 January 2010.