Piano Sonata No. 2 (Sessions)

Roger Sessions' Piano Sonata No. 2 was composed in 1946. It has three movements:

The first two movements each end in a slight pause, followed by a briefer pause.

The opening motive of the first movement, an upward-leaping fourth followed by a minor second and a major second, is related to the major second-minor second alternation of the main theme of the Lento.

The first two movements are tripartite in form while the third has been compared by Richard Dyer to a .

Sessions worked on the sonata in conjunction with his second symphony, completed the same year, and his opera Montezuma, but the latter did not achieve final form until much later.

The sonata is one of Sessions' relatively often-recorded works. Of his others the First String Quartet (1936), Pages from a Diary (1939) and his First (1930) and Third Piano Sonatas (1965) have been recorded as often or about as often.

Sources: Olmstead Discography ; WorldCat

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