As composer-pianists, Beethoven, Schumann, and Prokofiev took full advantage of their intimate knowledge of their instrument when creating the works on this concert program. Beethoven’s “Andante favori” first saw daylight as the original slow movement of the “Waldstein” Sonata, but was published separately on the advice of a friend. The slightly earlier Piano Sonata No. 18 is one of the three watershed works from Beethoven's Op. 31, transitional sonatas that incorporate both polished Classicism and raw Romanticism. Schumann’s Presto passionato and Op. 99 Bunte Blätter (Colored Leaves) encapsulate his signature mixture of unfettered emotion conveyed through small-scale musical forms. Prokofiev’s Eighth Piano Sonata, composed in Russia during the Second World War, is a dreamy work that seems to owe much to the composer’s love for Mira Mendelson, a young writer who would eventually become his second wife.
"Mr. Trifonov dispatched the score’s tangles of passagework and breathless flights in a performance that balanced fearless command and wildness." – Anthony Tommasini of The New York Times on Trifonov's performance of Schumann’s “Presto Passionato”.
Daniil Trifonov appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon.
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Piano Sonata No. 8 in B-flat Major, Op. 84
Musique de Serge Prokofiev
© Le Chant du Monde
