Prokofiev's Piano Sonatas

Abstract

The giants of the Viennese school, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, produced over one hundred and thirty piano sonatas between them. Among the “minor prophets” Hummel wrote nine, Dussek over thirty and Clementi (according to Grove) about sixty. Clementi's pupil, Field, although he wrote seven concertos for the instrument, was more niggardly with sonatas; there are perhaps four of them, three being his Opus 1. The prolific era was followed by a great drop in numbers; from Schumann, Chopin and Brahms we have three each and from Liszt one. Subsequently Grieg, Tchaikovsky and Balakirev contributed one each, Glazounov two, Szymanowski three, Ravel a sonatina. Benjamin Dale's one monumental effort seems to deserve a separate sentence. Some great masters of piano writing, Debussy for example, refrained entirely. Three Russian composers have alone made any attempt to “stop the rot”, Scriabin with ten, Medtner fourteen, and Prokofiev eight. No other noted living composers have got anywhere near Medtner and Prokofiev in regard to numbers; Bax has given us four sonatas, Ireland two (if we count the sonatina, but Prokofiev has two of those), Pizzetti and Bloch one each, and there is even an early one by Sibelius. These figures make no attempt to be exhaustive.