Piano Sonata No 3, Op. 28 (Prokofiev)
Movements
Submovements: Allegro tempestoso – Moderato – Allegro tempestoso – Moderato – Più lento – Più animato – Allegro I – Poco più mosso
Notes
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 Saint Petersburg on 15 April 1918, during a week-long festival of his music sponsored by the Conservatory.
This sonata derives from works that he composed as a teenager. In a letter to Miaskovsky on 26 June 1907, Prokofiev wrote about Piano Sonata no. 3: “It will remain…in one movement: pretty, interesting, and practical”. This sonata reveals most of the traditional sections in a sonata-form, within which Prokofiev employs his own blend of nineteenth- century Russian and twentieth-century characteristics.
The sonata is the shortest of his piano sonatas, being in a single movement in sonata form, but it is one of the most technically demanding pieces Prokofiev has ever written for the piano.
