Piano Sonata No. 8 in B‑Flat Major

Prokofiev’s Piano Sonata No. 8—its by turn glittering and galumphing finale apart—is generally the most understated and reflective of the trilogy of sonatas (sometimes erroneously called the War Sonatas) he first planned in 1939. This final instalment, in three movements, was completed in the summer of 1944. Prokofiev told his common-law wife, Mira, that its “dreamlike and tender” character was inspired by their relationship. Yet, although it contains more slow and meditative music than its companions, even from the start there are disturbing undertones. These erupt menacingly in the first movement’s development section and even more disquietingly in the finale, with its central coarse, satirically ham-fisted recollection of the suave slow movement (itself significantly derived from Prokofiev’s courtly incidental music to Pushkin’s 1820s-set novel Eugene Onegin). The pianist Sviatoslav Richter, who launched his career performing the Sixth Sonata and was entrusted with the ferociously demanding Seventh’s premiere, was particularly fond of this work: “The sonata is somewhat heavy to grasp, but heavy with richness—like a tree heavy with fruit.”