Samuil Feinberg - Piano Sonata No. 6, Op. 13

Samuil Feinberg (1890 - 1962) - Piano Sonata No. 6, Op. 13 (1923)

Victor Bunin, piano (2006)

Feinberg's Piano Sonata No. 6 was completed in 1923 and premiered in 1925 at the Festival of Contemporary Music in Venice. It encompasses a single movement, usually lasting around 15 minutes, and is in B minor. The sonata was Feinberg's only sonata to receive wide publication.

"The Sixth Sonata is probably the finest work [out of the first 6 sonatas]. It takes in a world of references - the bell-like tolling of the opening seems to recall Debussy’s ‘Cathédrale engloutie’ (Préludes I); but Janáček and Schoenberg both vie for attention, all sitting alongside a perceptive use of the B-A-C-H motif. Some of the reiterated block chords (around 6’) even sound like gestures from early Stockhausen electronic music! The performance (Sirodeau) is miraculous. It is here that virtuosity reaches its peak.

The structure of the Sixth Sonata is determined by its ideas - there is no recap as such, just a sense of continual evolution. As Sirodeau writes, ‘the composer seems to find himself on the tip of an apocalyptic sword ... and the listener remains imprisoned by the spirit of confusion and even of irreparable tragedy that dominates this work.’

Often dark and violent, but also containing passages of Messiaen-like luminosity, this is a tour de force, a piece that simply refuses to let the listener go. The very close is typical in its thought-provoking way, leaving the listener hanging in the air."

(sources: Wikipedia, http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2004/May04/Feinberg.htm)

Original audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYbMa_7X0eE

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