The two sonatas for violin and piano by Krzysztof Penderecki are set apart by forty years. The First, of 1953, is still the work of a student; the Second was created at the end of the 20th century and contains features that are collectively and at times superficially classified as postmodernist.
Penderecki wrote his Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano in 1999, commissioned by Anne-Sophie Muter, the brilliant performer of his Violin Concerto No. 2 “Metamorphoses”, to whom both works were dedicated. The form of Second Sonata is symmetrical. The central and the most extensive central movement, Nocturne, is sandwiched between two rapid parts, with two other slow and fairly short movements at the work’s extremities. In the solo monologue of the violin that opens the sonata, the theme, gradually developing from a two-note minor second motif, is played pizzicato, an unprecedented departure from the entire violin literature. A violent gradation follows the entry of the piano, broken brutally by a multi-note cluster, and a calm, contrapuntal dialogue of both instruments ensues. The transitions to Allegretto scherzando, the second section of the five-part whole, has been fluently through-composed; the same is true of the last two movements, where a violin trill on D serves as the bridge. Nocturne brings no romantically dreamlike music. Its course of narration id somewhat troubled, richer in ornamentation than in lyrical cantilenas. At one point, a “postmodernist surprise” appears: tempo di valse, with an emphatic 3/8 rhythm in the piano. Soon, however, acceleration brings a rise in tension, resolved pianissimo. Movement Four is a virtuoso piece. This is a striking feature of Penderecki’s Second Sonata, since even earlier on, also in Nocturne, the composer introduces episodes of display in the violin part, such as harmonic interval runs and spectacular passages that betray a close kinship to his instrumental concertos.

Adam Walaciński