Complete Piano Sonatas Vol. 1

Abstract

Prokofiev's First Piano Sonata was premiered early in 1910, with the composer himself at the keyboard. Although it does not belong to the composer's juvenilia, it is also not truly representative of his mature style, and is best appreciated as a showcase for Prokofiev's own pianistic skills. The work was originally cast in three movements, but Prokofiev discarded the second movement and the Finale, choosing to publish only the revised first movement. The composer dedicated his First Sonata to Vasily Morolev, and old friend.

The First Piano Sonata readily displays the young Prokofiev's many influences, including Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Busoni, and, above all, Anton Rubinstein (a favorite composer of Prokofiev's mother). It's rigid formal structure (textbook sonata form—exposition, development, and recapitulation) readily identifies the work as an early one within Prokofiev's catalogue. The sonata has somewhat of a stylistic "split personality," sitting on the cusp between the late nineteenth-century romanticism of Liszt, and a somewhat more austere, early twentieth-century sensibility. If there is perhaps an absence of real originality in this piece, there is still a strong emphasis on melody, and Prokofiev's lyricism is ever present. The exposition contains a clear statement of the themes, with some echoes of Schumann's F-sharp minor Sonata. The subsequent development section contains what some commentators have identified as excessive figuration—perhaps again the result of Prokofiev's relative immaturity.

Despite some of its derivative melodic and harmonic material, the Sonata does have some original moments, especially in terms of its emotional expressiveness. It is interesting to note that this Sonata was, like many of Prokofiev's works, not terribly well received; but, while critics would later condemn Prokofiev for his cacophony, modernism, and futurism, in 1910 the First Sonata was attacked by the modernists as "too orthodox." The work was criticized for its "coarseness, reflecting Rachmaninoff's influence," and for its "banality." Prokofiev was advised by one critic to look to the future, and to be more daring. Within a decade, Prokofiev's daring would prove to be his undoing, and he would leave Russian for America and Paris.

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