Nikolai Kapustin (b. 1937) occupies a unique space in contemporary piano music. If you view his list of works on his Wikipedia page, you’ll see no less than 161 opuses, with a pretty consistent rate of production, particularly since 1999. If you browse YouTube, you’ll see dozens of videos of both professionals and amateurs playing... Continue Reading →
#1: Ives - Sonata No. 2 “Concord, Mass., 1840-60” (1915) Well, here we are at the end of the “Top 5” sonata-ranking journey. And though this is the fifteenth sonata I’m writing about, I think I’ve saved the best for last. I’ve already written extensively about the Concord Sonata: in program notes for my junior... Continue Reading →
#2: Prokofiev - Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op. 82 (1940) This is the first of Prokofiev’s “War Sonata” trilogy, and boy is it a harrowing journey through wartime emotions. For a while I thought No. 7 would be the one to represent Prokofiev in the ranking, but No. 6 just kept grabbing me.... Continue Reading →
#3: Barber – Sonata in E-flat minor, Op. 26 (1949) It’s telling that when I was thinking about my initial ranking of contemporary sonatas, before I had scouted out more obscure pieces, my first thought was “OK, so where is Barber going to end up?” It’s popular, and justly so. But is it a masterpiece?... Continue Reading →
#4: Dutilleux - Piano Sonata (1948) Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013) deserves more recognition. He was a consummate craftsman, and, in the tradition of Brahms or Dukas, he wrote a lot more than he published, serving as his own tough critic. But the modest output available to us is full of extremely high-quality music. His orchestral works... Continue Reading →
There was no right way to title this category, and I think that’s a testament to how wonderfully complicated and diverse concert music has become in the last hundred years or so. I could have called the category “20th Century and Beyond,” but there was some downright Romantic music composed in the twentieth century, and... Continue Reading →
