# What's Your Favorite Obscure Piano Sonata?



## NicoleJS (Aug 13, 2016)

I know, this is a tough question. Maybe list your best three if you can't decide on one. (Of course, being obscure, I think this takes Beethoven off the table).


----------



## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Balakirev, the later of the two he wrote, both in B flat minor. I discovered it completely by accident when I was looking for another radio station and happened upon one which was playing it.

Left-field alternative nomination: Rachmaninov's no.1 in D minor. I know it's not obscure in the fullest sense but it gets nowhere near as many airings as I think it deserves.


----------



## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I don't know about my favourite, but I've been enjoying this recent album:









Cecile Licad plays sonatas by Reinagle, MacDowell, Griffes and Siegmeister. Obscure enough, I think!


----------



## Bruckner Anton (Mar 10, 2016)

Grande sonate: Les quatre âges by Alkan


----------



## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

I'll dig a few up from the depths of my hardrive...lets see 

Antheil sonata no 2

Myaskovsky sonata no 1

Vainberg sonata no 4

Richard Strauss sonata op 5

The Strauss is probably my favorite of the bunch but they are all well worth listening to.


----------



## Heliogabo (Dec 29, 2014)

Obscure? Black mass by Scriabin :lol:


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

As far as the really, truly obscure, I have enjoyed Akira Miyoshi's Piano Sonata in the past:


----------



## shadowdancer (Mar 31, 2014)

Obscure? Maybe...
Piano Sonata 1.X.1905, by Leoš Janáček


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Joseph Wolfl (aka Woelfl 1773-1812) Piano Sonata Op 25. Has a wonderful Adagio.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Stravinsky: First Sonata; rhythmically driven, almost a form of minimalism. Not recorded very often. The Serenade in A is nice, too.


----------



## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

This is really a damn tough question.


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Frank Bridge's piano sonata of 1921-4 is a fine modernist work.






But you may have predicted that I would say that.


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

In order to pick a favorite I'd first have to know a lot of obscure ones and I don't. But I've been listening to those of Roslavets and Stanchinsky and I like what I've heard. They're on Youtube, the ones that were not lost or destroyed at least. 
Roslavets No. 1 is my "favorite" so far (or is it Scriabin 11? ). A massive, brooding piece. Easy to follow if you already know Scriabin's style. I think the harmony is perhaps even more "far out", but as a whole it feels very similar to Scriabin.
Stanchinsky is really interesting too. It's a very different style, also unpredictable, yet not very dissonant or atonal (as for as I know by intuition).


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The sonata cycle by _Samuil Feinberg _(12), and_ Janacek_´s Sonata in the unique recording by Postnikova are among my definite favourites - piano music precisely as I like it.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

chesapeake bay said:


> I'll dig a few up from the depths of my hardrive...lets see
> 
> ...Richard Strauss sonata op 5
> 
> The Strauss is probably my favorite of the bunch but they are all well worth listening to.


This is a wonderful choice. I have it listed among my favorite 'rare' piano sonatas. IMO, Richard Strauss is one of the most underrated composers of the Romantic era. I would defy anyone who was not familiar with this piece to guess that it was written in 1880-81, not to mention by a 16-17 year old! It is a sonata that is more early Romantic and, in fact, the Adagio has a twinge of Bach.

It so happens that my favorite interpretation, Glenn Gould's, is available on YouTube. It is interesting that Gould took a special interest in this sonata. My guess is that it has something to do with its 'Bachian' characteristics. Listen to Gould's interpretation of the Adagio. He is at one with this music and this work is an example of his special interpretative skills. Yes, there is a bit of his characteristic humming accompaniment, but for some reason, in this work it doesn't bother me:


----------



## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Jean Barraque's Sonate pour piano, perhaps?


----------



## Brian Rin (Apr 18, 2015)

Others here have already mentioned Feinberg and Roslavets, who are very Scriabin-esque and my absolute favorites when it comes to solo piano music. If you love Scriabin, these two would be the most obvious candidates to explore. Others who wrote a good piano sonata or two in his style include Protopopov, Zaderatsky, Myaskovsky (early sonatas only), Alexandrov, and Kosenko off the top of my head. Oh and Kabalevsky's Piano Sonata #1 is kinda like Scriabin's #5 - good but not as great.

Arnold Bax's Piano Sonatas 1 and 2 are long and sprawling music but I like them for what they are.

Franck's pupil Lekeu wrote one piano sonata that IMO is very high quality even when compared to his teacher's Prelude, Chrole, and Fugue.

Stephane Blet is a contemporary French composer who also composed some Scriabin-esque music in his Piano Sonatas (I think there are 6).






I also like a few of Kapustin's recorded Piano Sonatas. Very fun.


----------



## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

Concerning Scriabin-influence, there´s also _Boris Pasternak_´s sonata





And there´s _Arapov_, like Sonata 2 




_Lubos Fiser _wrote a very dramatic series of piano sonatas - his 4th quotes Scriabin´s no.10 directly





Somehow, we all forgot to mention _Medtner_ here.


----------



## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

DaveM said:


> This is a wonderful choice. I have it listed among my favorite 'rare' piano sonatas. IMO, Richard Strauss is one of the most underrated composers of the Romantic era. I would defy anyone who was not familiar with this piece to guess that it was written in 1880-81, not to mention by a 16-17 year old! It is a sonata that is more early Romantic and, in fact, the Adagio has a twinge of Bach.
> 
> It so happens that my favorite interpretation, Glenn Gould's, is available on YouTube. It is interesting that Gould took a special interest in this sonata. My guess is that it has something to do with its 'Bachian' characteristics. Listen to Gould's interpretation of the Adagio. He is at one with this music and this work is an example of his special interpretative skills. Yes, there is a bit of his characteristic humming accompaniment, but for some reason, in this work it doesn't bother me:


Indeed Gould's is the version I listen to as well


----------



## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

joen_cph said:


> Somehow, we all forgot to mention _Medtner_ here.


A tragedy! I blame Irena Mejoueva, I have her Medtner cds but they are all from Denon Japan, so not in script I can read hehe. How about his Sonata-elegy in D-minor op.11 No.2


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

One from a not currently "high status" composer in the time most aptly termed golden age of piano sonata(Beethoven era post Haydn and Mozart)
Hummel no 6 in D major:




(there are some more good ones where that came from)

One from a rather original 'spiritual and/or/? technical devotee' of Beethoven who was schooled in the late 19th century Russian tradition.
Medtner Sonata Ballade(played by composer):





My favorite Scriabin Sonata(no. 4) for several years:


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ives Concord Piano Sonata.

"Obscure" in the sense of being unlistened to by a lot of classical music folks. Undeservedly so. A magnificent work!


----------



## Medtnaculus (May 13, 2015)

Lots of love for the Scriabinesque. Good to see lots of love for Roslavets, Feinberg, Bridge, Pasternak, Stanchinsky and Scriabin here. All names I thoroughly recommend listening to. To add to that, check out Harald Banter, Kelkel, Krein (a video I finished but never got around to uploading) and perhaps Berg's op 1.

Pretty impossible to give an all out favourite, but here's some I've taken interest in recently. Listened through Mosolov's sonatas which are incredibly intense and dark works. Sabaneyev's sonata "dedicated to Scriabin" is, much like the rest of his piano output, a hidden treasure. Eiges is another gem of the silver age of Russian music. His sonata-poemes are reminiscent of Scriabin and Rachmaninoff and deserve as much attention as they can get.

However, if sonatinas count (which many French composers seemed to focus on rather than full sonatas) I'd say Maurice Emmanuel takes the cake. His 6 sonatines are all masterpieces which deserve to be staples of the repertoire. I've listened through all of them countless times and always find something new to love. My current favourite is probably his third.


















I can't recommend them enough.


----------



## LOLWUT (Oct 12, 2016)

Obscure works are obscure for a reason.


----------



## Medtnaculus (May 13, 2015)

LOLWUT said:


> Obscure works are obscure for a reason.


Not sure I agree with you there.


----------



## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

Yet he posted a Holzbauer mass in the other thread...


----------



## LOLWUT (Oct 12, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> Yet he posted a Holzbauer mass in the other thread...


I concede. But most obscure works are indeed deserving of their obscurity.


----------



## Chronochromie (May 17, 2014)

LOLWUT said:


> I concede. But most obscure works are indeed deserving of their obscurity.


It's better that way. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.


----------



## LOLWUT (Oct 12, 2016)

Chronochromie said:


> It's better that way. Only a Sith deals in absolutes.


It is a different way of thinking.


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)




----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

LOLWUT said:


> Obscure works are obscure for a reason.


I do agree with you, no need to not explore them though.
Liking is something different.


----------



## Dimboukas (Oct 12, 2011)

Protopopov 2nd sonata is a great sonata, really. Listen to the finale for example.


----------



## majlis (Jul 24, 2005)

Khatchaturian's Awfully hard.


----------



## Jerry (Oct 17, 2016)

Jan Niederle's 2 sonatas. Huge somewhat Lisztian extravaganzas!


----------



## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Alexei Stanchinsky: _Piano Sonata in E-flat minor_ (1906)


----------



## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Glazunov's two sonatas are very attractive, meaty stuff, even arresting. It's frankly unfathomable why they're not better known.
Paderewski's Sonata is superb (the slow middle movement is otherworldly).
No arguments re. Rachmaninoff's First, Weinberg's, Feinberg's, Scriabin, and esp. Protopopov and Roslavets.
Barber's Sonata is well worth knowing.
And John Ireland's,
And Cyril Scott's (all of them),
And Dukas' massive one,
And Tubin's (esp. his Second).
Felix Blumenfeld's Sonata-Fantaisie (1913). https://www.amazon.com/Felix-Blumenfeld-Episodes-Life-Dancer/dp/B005FHMDO4/ref=cm_rdp_product
Anton Rubinstein's Sonatas I feel are unjustly underrated (esp. the Third, which evokes (or points to) some of Tchaikovsky's passion).
Lyapunov's Sonata in F is wonderful.


----------



## LOLWUT (Oct 12, 2016)

DaveM said:


> This is a wonderful choice. I have it listed among my favorite 'rare' piano sonatas. IMO, Richard Strauss is one of the most underrated composers of the Romantic era. I would defy anyone who was not familiar with this piece to guess that it was written in 1880-81, not to mention by a 16-17 year old! It is a sonata that is more early Romantic and, in fact, the Adagio has a twinge of Bach.
> 
> It so happens that my favorite interpretation, Glenn Gould's, is available on YouTube. It is interesting that Gould took a special interest in this sonata. My guess is that it has something to do with its 'Bachian' characteristics. Listen to Gould's interpretation of the Adagio. He is at one with this music and this work is an example of his special interpretative skills. Yes, there is a bit of his characteristic humming accompaniment, but for some reason, in this work it doesn't bother me:


So great. Such a beautiful ending especially. I have loved Strauss for years and had never heard this. Thank you for this gem.


----------



## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

Found another good one on an Eduard Syomin CD, Oleg Eiges Sonata Toccata no 4 in F sharp minor/E major op 15


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

A couple come to mind:

Lutoslawski Piano Sonata






and Joaquin Rodrigo's Piano Sonata No. 4 in B minor which is apparently obscure enough to not be on youtube.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The Anton Rubinstein sonatas were mentioned above with emphasis on the 3rd. I rather like the 1st, especially the Andante Largamente. The simple, but attractive melody is developed in a way similar to Liszt (in his milder moments):


----------



## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Medtner - Skazka ("Tale") Op 20/1

Not a sonata, strictly speaking, but a lovely piece nonetheless.


----------



## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Vincent D'Indy, Piano Sonata in E Minor, Op. 63. Here's the first movement:


----------



## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

I've seen a few mentions of Scriabin. When I was a young man in the 70s, Scriabin was indeed obscure. I would no longer call his music obscure at all. If though, for the sake of this thread, one would like to, then my favorite, and the _greatest_ obscure sonatas, by an enormous gulf, would be Scriabin's 5th through 10th Sonatas.

Even more obscure in my youth, would have been Alkan. I am on the fence as to whether or not he is still considered obscure. In any event he is certainly lesser known than he should be. I will go with his beautiful, and innovative, Grande Sonate 'Les Quatre Âges' for my favorite "obscure" sonata.


----------



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Aaron Copland. Not heard this often.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I would bet, given the conservative bent of Talk Classical, very few active members have listened to the Ives Concord Piano Sonata.

Among people in the know, this sonata is far from "obscure".

On TC? I could probably label it as "obscure".


----------



## Omicron9 (Oct 13, 2016)

Not sure that I have "A" favorite, but this is right up there:

Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstücke, Op. 11


----------



## Bachiana (Aug 26, 2016)

LOLWUT said:


> Obscure works are obscure for a reason.


Don't forget that the Matthäus Passion was also obscure for a century. Thanks to Felix Mendelssohn this masterpiece has been rediscovered.


----------



## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Pretty much all of the snappy earlier ones by George Antheil. Confusingly, three rediscovered sonatas from later in Antheil's career (not included here) were given numbers 3-5. Can't say I've heard them, though.

_Sonata Sauvage_ [Sonata no.1] (1923):
_Airplane Sonata_ [Sonata no.2] (1921):
_Death of Machines_ [Sonata no.3] (1923):
_Jazz Sonata_ [Sonata no.4] (1922):
Sonata no.5 (1922-23):

Total running time c. 20 minutes

p.s. good to see the Frank Bridge sonata mentioned - if only we could have got another ten years of work from him.


----------



## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Medtner's sonatas are right on the brink of "obscurity," but they are better than his contemporaries Rachmaninoff and Scriabin IMO. Really great writing. I would also say the sonatas of Strauss and Grieg; and many of Haydn's, which don't get as much attention as his symphonies and quartets but are just as good. One that I think deserves its obscurity is Tchaikovsky's Grand Sonata - the man hadn't an iota of knowledge about how to write for the instrument.


----------



## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

A few Medtner sonatas fit that bill for you me: 
G minor op 21




A minor op 30




Sonata Ballade




Sonata Skazka




Sonata Idyll


----------



## strawa (Apr 1, 2020)

Sonatines count? So, the three sonatines op. 67 of Sibelius. But are they obscure? Well, Gould recorded, I guess not so much.

Recently, I've been listening to some sonatas by Reicha, really nice stuff. There's one in F major based in themes of the Zauberflote. Also I enjoyed a lot this "Grande", in C major:


----------



## Dulova Harps On (Nov 2, 2018)




----------



## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) is not a very well known composer, and his Grande Sonate “Les quattre âges,” Op. 33, is pretty obscure, right? I’m not a huge fan of Alkan, but this is one of his works that I do like. I have the 1965 recording on Sony (via RCA) by Raymond Lewenthal.


----------

