Piano Sonata No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)

Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36, is a piano sonata in B-flat minor composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1913. Rachmaninoff revised it in 1931, with the note, "The new version, revised and reduced by author."

Three years after his third piano concerto was finished, Rachmaninoff moved with his family to a house in Rome that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had used. It was during this time in Rome that Rachmaninoff started working on his second piano sonata. However, because both of his daughters contracted typhoid fever, he was unable to finish the composition in Rome. Instead, Rachmaninoff moved his family on to Berlin in order to consult with doctors. When the girls were well enough, Rachmaninoff traveled with his family back to his Ivanovka country estate, where he finished the second piano sonata. Its premiere took place in St. Petersburg in December 1913.

The sonata is in three interrelated movements:

It gives the impression of being a single movement due to being joined by two Non allegro bridges. The piece follows sonata form strictly.

The first movement of the second piano sonata is in sonata allegro form. The exposition starts with the first theme, which has a descending arpeggio that ends with a low B-flat octave followed by a B-flat minor chord. The first theme area lasts until a cadenza-like passage creates a bridge into the second theme area. The second theme is in D-flat major, with a chorale-like texture that contrasts with the brilliance of the first theme.

In the development section, which is split into three parts, there is much tonal instability with constantly changing key centers. Parts of this section use the left hand to imitate bells, with chromatic descending, alternating sevenths and thirds.

The recapitulation restates the first two themes in B-flat minor. The final section of an extension to the recapitulation alternates between B-flat major and B-flat minor, leaving the tonic unclear until the coda. The coda, clearly in B-flat minor, repeats two themes seen earlier in the movement.

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