The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, is a concertante work written by Sergei Rachmaninoff for piano and orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto, all in a single movement. Rachmaninoff wrote the work at his summer home, the Villa Senar in Switzerland, according to the score, from 3 July to 18 August 1934. Rachmaninoff himself, a noted performer of his own works, played the piano part at the piece's premiere on 7 November 1934, at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, Maryland, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
Sergei Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40, in Paris in 1924-25, during what he called "nine months of frenzied toil". He characterized this symphony as a work of "iron and steel".
Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert, conducting the first performance of his own Octet for Wind Instruments.
Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op 80, written between 1938 and 1946, is one of the darkest and most brooding of the composer's works. Prokofiev was awarded the 1947 Stalin prize for this composition.
Sergei Prokofiev set about composing his Piano Concerto No. 1 in D-flat major, Op. 10, in 1911, and finished it the next year. The shortest of all his concertos, it is in one movement, about 15 minutes in duration, and dedicated to the “dreaded Tcherepnin.”
Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 1 in D major is a violin sonata from his Op. 12 set, along with his Violin Sonata No. 2 and Violin Sonata No. 3. It was written in 1798 and dedicated to Antonio Salieri. Being an early work written around the period when Beethoven studied with Haydn, the sonata is for the most part written in a classical style much like that of Mozart or Haydn.
Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42, is a set of variations for solo piano, written in 1931 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. He composed the variations at his holiday home in Switzerland.
Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 58 is a concerto written by Sergey Prokofiev between 1933 and 1938. Its duration is approximately 35 minutes. It consists of three movements:
- Andante – Poco meno mosso – Adagio
- Allegro giusto
- Tema (allegro) – Interludio 1 – Variations 1–3 – Interludio 2 – Variation 4 – Reminiscenza – Coda – Più mosso
The Flute Sonata in D, Op. 94, is a musical work composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1943. It was initially composed for flute and piano, and was later transcribed for violin as Op. 94a, both versions have been recorded several times. The piece contains four different movements.
Dmitry Kabalevsky's Piano Sonata No. 2 in E-flat major, Op. 45 was composed in 1945 and dedicated to Emil Gilels. It is the most vast and dramatic of Kabalevsky's three sonatas. A War Sonata such as Sergei Prokofiev's trilogy, its first movement has been compared to that of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7.
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Sonata for Violin and Piano in G major, Op. 134 in the autumn of 1968 in Moscow, completing it on October 23. It is set in three movements and lasts approximately 31 minutes. It is dedicated to the violinist David Oistrakh, who premiered the work on May 3, 1969 in the Large Hall of the Moscow Conservatory.
Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto, Op. 15, was written from 1938 to 1939 and dedicated to Henry Boys, his former teacher at the Royal College of Music. It was premiered in New York on 29 March 1940 by the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa with the New York Philharmonic conducted by John Barbirolli. A revised version of the concerto appeared in 1951, including alterations of the solo violin part prepared with the assistance of Manoug Parikian. It was performed by Bronislav Gimpel and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under Thomas Beecham.
The Sonata in A major for Violin and Piano by César Franck is one of his best-known compositions, and is considered one of the finest sonatas for violin and piano ever written. It is an amalgam of his rich native harmonic language with the Classical traditions he valued highly, held together in a cyclic framework.
Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 28 (1917) is a sonata composed for solo piano, using sketches dating from 1907. Prokofiev gave the première of this in St. Petersburg on 15 April 1918, during a week-long festival of his music sponsored by the Conservatory.
Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 1 was written in 1909. It consists of a single movement in sonata form.
The Piano Sonata No. 9 in C major, Op. 103 by Sergei Prokofiev is his final completed piano sonata. It is dedicated to pianist Sviatoslav Richter.
The Sonata for Solo Violin in D major, Opus 115, is a three-movement work for unaccompanied violin composed by Sergei Prokofiev in 1947. It was commissioned by the Soviet Union's Committee of Arts Affairs as a pedagogical work for talented violin students. It is therefore a non-virtuosic piece, and was originally designed to be played not by one soloist but by multiple young performers in unison. It was not performed until 10 July 1959 - six years after Prokofiev's death - by Ruggiero Ricci at the Moscow Conservatory.
The Terzetto in C major, Op. 74 (B. 148), is a chamber work for two violins and viola by the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák, published in 1887.
The String Sonata No. 1, commonly referred to by its original Italian name Sonata per archi, is a composition for string orchestra by German composer Hans Werner Henze. It was composed between 1957 and 1958.
The Symphony No. 3 in B minor by the Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky was completed in 1951, with the final movement themed "Peace will conquer war." The symphony was first performed in Kyiv on 23 October 1951, by the Kyiv Philharmonic, conducted by Natan Rakhlin. Criticised by the Soviet authorities on ideological grounds, the composer was forced to rework the symphony, and to remove the subtitle of the finale. The first performance of the revised version took place in Leningrad in 1955.
