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Piano Sonata No.2

This 12-minute piece consists of three movements and was composed from August to October 1985. Its music language develops in the line of Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, Alfred Schnittke, and Edison Denisov; it represents the polystylistic period in my evolution as a composer. The music language of Sonata absorbs and fuses sharply contrasting, sometimes mutually exclusive, components and resembles the broken space-time mirror of the 20th century.

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The first movement is based on the combination of free atonality, dodecaphony, jazz and quasi-citations from classical music. All these stylistic elements form a multidimensional sonic world, where the border between logic and absurdity becomes very elusive.

The second movement is notated on four staves and creates an illusion of two pianos simultaneously performing two different Adagios, where a stylized Mozart in the middle register is enveloped and permeated with an atonal sonic cloud.

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In the Finale, the combination of various atonal techniques, jazz and classical allusions, is complemented with echoes of world folk music. Brief insertions of Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Jewish, and Chinese motives, add further dimensions to the stylistic and aesthetic kaleidoscope.

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Pauses play a specific role in the dramaturgy of Sonata: relaxing and energizing, emotional and intellectual, subtle or imperative. On the last page of the Finale, there is an empty bar which equals just 1/32 in Allegro tempo; this corresponds literally to a microscopical grain in music time, nevertheless it is of extreme importance for the overall rhythmic structure. I even purposely marked this empty bar with an accent sign, causing a long and dramatic discussion with the publisher. Finally, I was allowed to keep the challenging sign at my own risk - and I have never regretted it. 

Piano Sonata No.2 by Yakov Gubanov Cover
Piano Sonata No.2 by Yakov Gubanov Score - First Page
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