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Technical Notice
| Classical Composer: | Boulez, Pierre |
|---|---|
| Work: | Piano Sonata No. 1 |
| Year Composed: | 1946 |
| Instrumentation: | pf |
| Publishers: |
Universal Edition Editions Amphion |
| Duration: | 00:10:00 |
| Period: | 20th Century |
| Work Category: | Instrumental |
Work Information
Available Recording(s)
Composed in 1946, the First Sonata of Pierre Boulez is in two movements, a slow followed bya fast. In the first four bars of the work the composer presents five characteristic and very different figures, easily distinguishable by the listener. These will serve as the basic material of the first movement: a simple and calm interval, a low note with an appoggiatura, a single note in the highest register, a rapid and impetuous figure leading to a deep stressed note, a broadly spreading polyphonic chord, low and high in register. The work of the composer has consisted in taking these elements and varying the parameters that define them. The rapid figure thus reappears at bar 14, always descending, but its character is different, since it decreases in dynamic to a note played pianissimo.
In the whole movement a great variety of length and of meaning of silences can be noticed, with the use of the entire range of the keyboard and sudden changes of dynamics, together with the multiplicity of figures dealt with. These characteristics are found in the second movement of the sonata. This is a vast "toccata", constructed from rapid figures, alternating between the two hands -figures that may have rounded outline with an intimate fusion of voices. In this early composition there are already evident some of the elements that will define the compositional style of Pierre Boulez: clarity and rigour of expression, and a tendency to brilliant outbursts.
Writer: Dominique Druhen
Translated by: Keith Anderson
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