Sonata No.2 Op. 71 For Piano

The second sonata is on a much larger scale than the first, and has three movements which develop in intensity, reaching a climax in the last movement which is a passacaglia. It is a stormy work, in the sense that it openspeacefully and closes in a similar manner, with a heavy shower of notes and ideas in between.

There is little hint of this in the gentle opening of the first movement, and although it follows the pattern of its previous sonatain developing a climax and releasing it again, it is not until the scherzo, with its powerful motor rhythms, that the full fury of the storm breaks. The concluding passacaglia is built on repetition. The nature of the formpartymakes this inevitable, but repetition becomes a subtext, with the idea of speeding up to a climax being itself repeated, the second time subsiding into the peace of a storm blown out.

© John Joubert