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Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson was an English composer, as well as a long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.
Benjamin Burwell Johnston Jr. was an American contemporary music composer, known for his use of just intonation. He was called "one of the foremost composers of microtonal music" by Philip Bush and "one of the best non-famous composers this country has to offer" by John Rockwell.
The Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, by Johannes Brahms was completed during the summer of 1864 and published in 1865. It was dedicated to Her Royal Highness Princess Anna of Hesse. As with most piano quintets composed after Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet (1842), it is written for piano and string quartet.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B♭ major, Op. 106 is a piano sonata that is widely viewed as one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among the greatest piano sonatas of all time. Completed in 1818, it is often considered to be Beethoven's most technically challenging piano composition and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire. The first documented public performance was in 1836 by Franz Liszt in the Salle Erard in Paris to an enthusiastic review by Hector Berlioz.
Suite for Microtonal Piano (1978) is a suite for specifically microtonally tuned piano(s) by Ben Johnston written in 1977. According to Bob Gilmore the piece, "take[s] extended just intonation well beyond the point reached by Harry Partch."
In music, consonance and dissonance are categorizations of simultaneous or successive sounds. Within the Western tradition, some listeners associate consonance with sweetness, pleasantness, and acceptability, and dissonance with harshness, unpleasantness, or unacceptability, although there is broad acknowledgement that this depends also on familiarity and musical expertise. The terms form a structural dichotomy in which they define each other by mutual exclusion: a consonance is what is not dissonant, and a dissonance is what is not consonant. However, a finer consideration shows that the distinction forms a gradation, from the most consonant to the most dissonant. In casual discourse, as German composer and music theorist Paul Hindemith stressed, "The two concepts have never been completely explained, and for a thousand years the definitions have varied". The term sonance has been proposed to encompass or refer indistinctly to the terms consonance and dissonance.
The Piano Sonata No. 18 in E♭ major, Op. 31, No. 3, is an 1802 sonata for solo piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. A third party gave the piece the nickname "The Hunt" due to one of its themes' resemblance to a horn call. Beethoven maintains a playful jocularity throughout much of the piece, but as in many of his early works, the jocular style can be heard as a facade, concealing profound ideas and depths of emotion.
Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, Op. 27 No. 1, "Quasi una fantasia", is a sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1800–1801.
Frédéric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58, is the last of the composer's piano sonatas. Completed in 1844 and dedicated to Countess Élise de Perthuis, the work is considered to be one of Chopin's most difficult compositions, both technically and musically. This work was based on Johann Nepomuk Hummel's Piano Sonata No. 5 in F Sharp Minor, Op. 81.
Antonín Dvořák's Serenade for Strings in E major, Op. 22 (B. 52), is one of the composer's most popular orchestral works. It was composed in just two weeks in May 1875.
The Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5 of Johannes Brahms was written in 1853 and published the following year. The sonata is unusually large, consisting of five movements, as opposed to the traditional three or four. When he wrote this piano sonata, the genre was seen by many to be past its heyday. Brahms, enamored of Beethoven and the classical style, composed Piano Sonata No. 3 with a masterful combination of free Romantic spirit and strict classical architecture. As a further testament to Brahms' affinity for Beethoven, the Piano Sonata is infused with the instantly recognizable motive from Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 during the first, third, and fourth movements. Composed in Düsseldorf, it marks the end of his cycle of three sonatas, and was presented to Robert Schumann in November of that year; it was the last work that Brahms submitted to Schumann for commentary. Brahms was barely 20 years old at its composition. The piece is dedicated to Countess Ida von Hohenthal of Leipzig.
The Piano Sonata in A minor D. 845 (Op.42) by Franz Schubert is a sonata for solo piano. Composed in May 1825 and entitled Premiere Grande Sonata, it is the first of three sonatas published during the composer's lifetime, the others being D.850 and D.894. Conceived as a set, these works were composed during what was reportedly a period of relatively good health and spirits for Schubert, and are praised for their quality and ambition. This first sonata in particular marks a significant step toward the composer’s mature piano sonata style; the format and several characteristic stylistic elements continue through the last.
The Horn Trio in E♭ major, Op. 40, by Johannes Brahms is a chamber piece in four movements written for natural horn, violin, and piano. Composed in 1865, the work commemorates the death of Brahms's mother, Christiane, earlier that year. However, it draws on a theme which Brahms had composed twelve years previously but did not publish at the time.
Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 32, for violin, cello and piano is a Romantic chamber composition by the Russian composer Anton Arensky. It was written in 1894 and is in four movements:
- Allegro moderato – Unlike the agitated opening melody of the first movement from Mendelssohn's Piano Trio No. 1, this piece opens gently, lyrically and elegiacally, setting an autumnal mood of the whole work. This movement ends with a coda marked "Adagio".
- Scherzo – The movement in the parallel key features flying notes, and a waltz-like middle section mainly in B-flat major. The movement is cheerful throughout.
- Elegia (Adagio) – Following the cheerful scherzo comes the contrasting and sad slow movement in the subdominant minor. Presenting no formal grief but memorial thoughts, this movement is deeply elegiac but not funereal. The middle section begins in G major but involves a number of key modulations, which makes the passage that initially evokes a brighter mood even more affecting yet dreamlike later on.
- Finale – Back in D minor, the movement opens dramatically. Later comes a recollection of themes from the third and first movements, which is followed by a turbulent ending that restates the primary theme of this movement.
Arnold Bax composed his Piano Sonata in E-flat in 1921. It is the original version of Bax's First Symphony and was not performed in public or published in the composer's lifetime.
The Symphony No. 2 in F minor was written by Richard Strauss between 1883 and 1884. It is sometimes referred to as just Symphony in F minor. He gave it the Opus number 12, and it also appears in other catalogues as TrV 126 and Hanstein A.I.2. It is not listed in von Asow's catalog.
Sonatas, duos and fantasies by Franz Schubert include all works for solo piano by Franz Schubert, except separate dances. They also include a number of works for two players: piano four hands, or piano and a string instrument.
The Piano Sonata in B minor, Op.5, was written by Richard Strauss in 1881–82 when he was 17 years old. The Sonata is in the Romantic style of his teenage years. The first recording of the piece was the last recording made by the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould.
The Violin Sonata No. 2 in E♭ major, Op. 102, was written by Camille Saint-Saëns from February to March 1896, and premiered on 2 June 1896 in Paris.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Johnston, Ben and Gilmore, Bob (2006). "Maximum Clarity" and Other Writings on Music, p.185. ISBN 978-0-252-03098-7.
- ↑ Liner notes for SOUND FORMS FOR PIANO, New World Records 80203, fetched from "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-05-17. Retrieved 2007-11-13.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - 1 2 Johnston and Gilmore (2006), p.186.
- ↑ Microtonal Piano by Ben Johnston (1997). Phillip Bush, piano. Koch International Classics 3-7369-2. Liner notes.
