I. Adagio [2.43

s d e n r M a y r r k e s / B a H a w & © B o o s e y

James MacMillan

an autobiographical statement he had composed, at a time when his compositional style was changing significantly.The Piano Sonata antedates this quartet, the far more quintessentially modernist period of his output, whereas the smaller piano works all come after it.These two periods cannot be entirely disassociated from each other, however; they share a number of common features, most obviously a predilection for sustained, concentrated stillness, and violent contrasts, as well as the enduring influence of folk music. The sonata's two short outer movements frame the large and complex central movement - a proportional arrangement MacMillan had already employed in Three Dawn Rituals (1983), an ensemble work for eight players. The short movements therefore come to be seen as prelude and afterthought. Although not immediately apparent, symmetry is central to the sonata's structure: the last movement is constructed as a retrograde of the first, transposed down a semitone (the strange opening to the third movement can thereby be explained by careful listening to the end of the first!) and there are more complex symmetrical relationships at work in the middle movement itself.

Any moments of relaxation in the work are shortlived and deceptive. The static first movement sets up an ominous undercurrent that runs through the work until the nervous and somewhat inconclusive chatterings of the sonata's final bars. The second movement breaks out at times into considerable violence in fluctuation with an uneasy stillness. In it,we find features such as the confinement of one hand to black n o t e s a n d t h e o t h e r t o w h i t e ( o f t e n simultaneously, creating chromatic textures); rapid streams of notes grouped in quintuplets, fitting easily under the hand; a vast array of textures deployed, including the differentation of lines through subtle use of the soft pedal (indicated in the score). The pianist John York, who has also recorded the Piano Sonata, has y the time I started writing the Piano SonataBin 1998 I had been thinking, for a while,commented that he considers the work to be unidiomatic, and comparing the writing to that in about the possibilities of making works out of two MacMillan's two Cello Sonatas, describes it as separate parts that would balance one another. In "more abstruse, harder to grasp physically and order for this to be effective, I thought, the two mentally". I do not agree. parts would have to be more or less selfsufficient, and have their own internal balance: in Having established two distinct periods in fact, the first movement has been performed MacMillan's output, it is interesting to see that his several times as a piece in its own right; the current compositional activity seems to be second movement has its own material until near heading towards a fusion. The music remains less the end when a sort of coda mixes the material hard-edged and uncompromising, but his use of from the two movements (albeit inconclusively). the piano, in chamber or orchestral contexts, is increasingly reminiscent of the pianistic style of People usually want to know about the the Piano Sonata. Good examples of this are the movements' subtitles. What I had initially had in piano trio Fourteen Little Pictures (1997) and the mind was that the first movement (Variation) was two Cello Sonatas (1999 and 2001), all of which at the same time a set of fairly clearly delineated have prominent and challenging piano parts. The variations, and a progressive exploration, Cello Sonata No. 1, in particular, shows the through variation, of the material of the opening. composer exploring a new avenue, which had The second movement (Erosion/Glacial) has two already been hinted at in the orchestral piano distinct ideas, one of which is made of rather parts in works such as the Concerto for Cello and dense but quiet chords, and is gradually “eroded” Orchestra (1996) and Quickening (1999) - namely by the second idea, which has much clearer the use of pure sonorism, through clusters, polyphonic lines spread out across the different indeterminacy and extended use of the sustaining registers of the piano (and is “glacial” in pedal to generate massive textures. In this aspect character). of his composition MacMillan may have been influenced by the Russian composers Galina As for the overall form of the work - two Ustvolskaya and Alfred Schnittke, both of whom movements of approximately equal length and he greatly admires. One may only speculate on starkly contrasting character and colour - there is what, in solo piano terms, may come next. an underlying model for this shape in my main extra-musical passion: hill-walking. The ©2002 Simon Smith somewhat violent first movement evokes