Piano Sonata (Klaviersonate)

World premiere 26. September 1959

Berlin · Berliner Festwochen

Piano Klaus Billing

This sonata is closely connected with a number of compositions – “Antifone”, “The Prince of Homburg”, “Three Symphonic Stu dies” – in which I tried during the late 1950s, shortly before moving from Naples to Rome, to consolidate the artistic and compositional experiences of the previous ten years, i.e., to create a personal style marked also by a distinctive compositional technique. My reference to old forms is due to a wish for clarity and transparency, a wish based on the need for communication.
In the first movement of the Sonata, there are two contrasting elements sometimes coexisting, sometimes conflicting with one each other; the second movement is written in song form, and the finale is a real fugue, a modest hommage to Johann Sebastian Bach.

Hans Werner Henze