Piano Sonata No.2 in B flat minor Op.36 (revised version)

Shortly after the completion of the Corelli Variations in 1931, and in much the same economical frame of mind, Rachmaninov undertook the revision of the Sonata in B flat minor. Started in Rome eighteen years earlier, completed at home at Ivanovka and first performed in Moscow in December 1913, it now seemed to him to be embarrassingly extravagant: “I look at my early works,” he is quoted as saying, “and see how much there is that is superfluous. Even in this sonata so many voices are moving simultaneously and it is too long.”

The object of the revision was not so much to simplify the work – it is quite difficult enough in the revised version – as to clarify it. How successful Rachmaninov was in this, and whether he lost something vital to it in cutting it and reshaping it, is a matter of some controversy. Certainly, ever since Horovitz rediscovered the original version and inspired a whole generation of competition pianists to present it as the ultimate proof of keyboard heroism, it has regularly been heard as it was first published by Gutheil in 1914 (or in some kind of compromise between that and the revised version). The fact remains, however, that the 1931 version is the result of the composer’s mature reflection and that – whatever the sacrifice in terms of spontaneity – it does clarify both the texture and the structure of the work.

Actually, by the standards of the day, even the original version was considered “intellectual” and “severe” rather than spontaneous. Rachmaninov’s critics no doubt perceived that there is little in the work that does not relate, in one way or another, either to the lapidary two-note motif dramatically articulated high in the right hand in the second bar or to the chromatic line drawn by the left hand immediately after it. In the revised version, which cuts the digressions, there is even less that doesn’t relate. If it is difficult to associate the gently lyrical second subject with the impulsive opening themes it is probably because of its distracting similarity to the second subject of the first movement of the Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor. The melodic and rhythmic relationships are plainly there however.

Among the few episodes with no apparent relationship to the basic material of the work are the seven bars of Non allegro which link the first movement to the Lento and, with minimal changes, the Lento to the Allegro molto. The Lento itself, on the other hand, is abundant in allusions back to the Allegro agitato – and even more in the revised version than in the original. Preserving the melancholy E minor opening much as he wrote it in 1913, Rachmaninov revised the middle section quite drastically, both abbreviating it and rewriting it to make the thematic references unmistakably clear. With the same purpose in mind, he then called on the second subject of the first movement, undisguised in shape and colour this time, to effect the consoling change of key to E major in the closing bars.

Although the major mode is now established, the jubilant B flat major beginning of the Allegro molto, bursting in on a quiet recall of the Non allegro connecting material, is a brilliantly dramatic event. It is structurally significant too in that it so clearly echoes the two-note motif from the beginning of the first movement. The chromatic line which was also part of the first subject of the Allegro agitato is recalled to introduce a march-like episode in D major and is then incorporated in a characteristically broad melodic inspiration in E flat. So the strategy now is to manoeuvre that big tune into B flat major and, having achieved that after recalling the first theme in anything but the right key, to celebrate it in an impetuous Presto coda.