Allegro con brio, ma non leggiero

from Piano Sonata No.4 in C minor Op 29 (1908-1917)

Prokofiev didn’t like throwing his ideas away. If he had no immediate use for them he would keep them until he could develop them, rework them, or just patch them into a work in progress (not always convincingly). According to their subtitles, both the Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas are based on material “from old note books” conceived nine or ten years earlier. So it is doing no serious violence to the Fourth Piano Sonata to detach its last movement - which, anyway, is quite different in mood from the first two. The opening Allegro molto sostenuto and the Andante assai are both appropriate to a work dedicated to the memory of a friend from the composer’s student days. The last movement, on the other hand, can scarcely be classified as a memorial, even to the best and most understanding of friends.

Beginning with a virtuoso flourish in C major and ending (more or less) in the same key, the Allegro con brio, ma non leggiero is a frankly and unapologetically cheerful inspiration. The oddly grunting second subject is more expressive but scarcely less entertaining than the opening theme and the two ideas are so compatible that they are spectacularly integrated later on. The graceful and comparatively quiet middle section not only offsets the exuberance of the material on either side but also stimulates an urge to restore it and to transcend it.