Medtner - Sonata-Ballade [Op. 27]

Performed by: Geoffrey Tozer.

00:00 - I. Allegretto
09:40 - II. Introduzione. Mesto
12:49 - III. Finale. Allegro

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The Eighth "Sonata-Ballade" in F♯, Op. 27, began as a one-movement work, and was expanded into its present form over the period 1912–14. It comprises a Ballade, Introduction and Finale. The tonality and some of the material make passing reference to Chopin's Barcarolle. The first movement opens with one of Medtner's lovely pastoral melodies. The finale, like the Piano Quintet, has a thematic connection with his Pushkin setting The Muse. Medtner himself recorded this work.

"As one of his more programmatic works, Nikolai Medtner’s Sonata-Ballade, Op. 27 exemplifies the composer’s structural mastery of form in framing an expressive narrative. In accounts given by Medtner’s students, the sonata was partly conceived in connection to a religious poem by Fet detailing Christ’s temptation in the desert. His pupils additionally recall an underpinning theme of inner conflict between light and darkness in the human soul. Medtner’s program is indeed a sort of two-tiered narrative, incorporating Fet’s biblical drama within a larger narrative of personal struggle and redemption. In the music, this manifests itself in the form of a variable subjectivity that alternates between a virtual, human protagonist and a scriptural drama.

...Composed only three years before the Bolshevik Revolution, the Sonata-Ballade also has historical significance as an artistic repudiation of the growing anti-religious sentiment (and unorthodox spiritualities) appearing in early twentieth-century Russia. Ultimately, the sonata can be viewed as the composer’s own metaphor for his conservative artistic beliefs, as he expresses faith in his spiritual “muse” to prevail over those modern trends he dismissed as mere “fashion.”
"Medtner’s Sonata-ballade : interpreting its dramatic trajectory through virtual subjectivities" - https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/i...