Sonata

I said, it was so beautiful for violin and piano that we played thousands of times.

And another piece that we used to play very much, or I used to play very much in this group was Sonata's Interlude by Sean Cage and Four Walls, you know.

So this piece, for instance, you know, I played Sonata's Interlude 12 times, which is so...

We are in that time in Argentina.

I did it in Brazil and in Uruguay.

They're such wonderful pieces.

Talk a little bit about the Mozart Sonata for piano and violin in G major.

It's K301.

It's one of the sonatas Mozart wrote in Paris when he was in Paris.

right.

Isn't it the one from the Sonata?

Probably.

Probably.

I guess the word sardonic is my go-to critical cliché when I write about Prokofiev's piano music.

Anyway, Antoine Prea plays the Haydn E minor Sonata, followed by Prokofiev's Sarcasms, and then the Haydn B minor Sonata, followed by the ten pieces of Prokofiev from his ballet Romeo and Juliet, you know, the suite that he created for piano out of music from his original orchestral ballet score.

This disc was released in April of this year, 2026, on the Naïve label.

And when it was assigned to me for review, at first I thought, well, you know, I better be prepared with comparative performances at the ready to see how Antoine Prea's piano playing stacks up alongside the multitude of comparisons and other versions of these pieces that you can find in the catalog by streaming or downloading or fishing in the Hudson River or, you know, however you get the music.

And then when he gets to the loudest possible moments, he never but never bangs.

Somehow the sound is always full and well-modulated and never brittle.

So what do I love? What does make Antoine Prea's Haydn E minor Sonata recording special? You know, the E minor, I can't remember the exact number.

I'm too lazy to go look in my Haydn catalog now, but you know the [singing] You know, I can't remember even all the music in that first movement, but the, uh, the finale is [singing] I should know that because this was the first Haydn Sonata I ever played, but I never played it nearly as well as Antoine Prea.

Tracks 17 through 20.

Again, Nicola Mateus Jr., Sonata in A minor, GB-LBL, ADD, 31466, number 21.

Just call it Sonata in A major.

Okay.

Anyway, this was also composed before 1700.

Right, so he really took advantage of the texture, the colors, lots of arpeggios, and it's kind of a technical showpiece, but not entirely, and there's very loud sections, and soft and slow sections, and he really takes the entire breadth of what the piano can do.

You have, it looks like, a very technical program to begin with, because you have the Sonata in A Major by Franz Schubert, and then you move into Franz Liszt in the Concert Etude, Un Suspiro, a sigh.

Tell me a bit about this piece.

it's kind of just a nice little, you know, intermission break piece.

Anytime Classical

Pianist Jeno Jando performs Scherzo Allegretto from a piano sonata in B major by Franz Schubert.

Piano Sonata in B Major Thank you.

Thank you.

so so Thank you.

you you Thank you.

you so so so so Thank you.

you Piano music so so Sonata number two in A-flat major by Dora Pajacevic, performed by pianist Natasha Stojanowska, here on Anytime Classical.