Prokofiev: War Sonatas (2012)

Sergey Prokofiev's so-called War Sonatas weren't originally given that title, and the first of them was premiered by the composer in 1940, before the Soviet Union entered World War II. They were, however, conceived as a group, and as Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg points out in his notes, the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s easily provided an alternate source of gloom and stress for the composer. At any rate, these three piano sonatas are documents of their time. Not explicitly referential to or evocative of ... Read More

Sergey Prokofiev's so-called War Sonatas weren't originally given that title, and the first of them was premiered by the composer in 1940, before the Soviet Union entered World War II. They were, however, conceived as a group, and as Russian-Israeli pianist Boris Giltburg points out in his notes, the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s easily provided an alternate source of gloom and stress for the composer. At any rate, these three piano sonatas are documents of their time. Not explicitly referential to or evocative of external events like many of Shostakovich's works of the same period, they offer agitated, swirling, and structurally detailed opening movements and brutally difficult, mechanistic finales softened only by small episodes and by tender slow movements that seem to reflect Prokofiev's growing involvement with Mira Mendelson, soon to become his second wife. These are remarkable depictions of calm within the most intense storms imaginable. These sonatas were specialties of the great Russian... Read Less

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2012, Orchid Classics UPC: 5060189560233 CD See All from $20.93