Winter Journal _Gustav Hoyer_finish.jpg
Winter Journal _Gustav Hoyer_finish.jpg

Piano Sonata in Three Acts

$50.00

Instrumentation: Solo piano

Duration: 28 minutes   |   Three movements   |   Virtuoso

Recorded: Benjamin Harding (piano); Grammy-winning engineer Dan Blessinger, A Winter Journal (Hoyer Media, 2023)

What's included: Complete piano score (PDF)

Description: Composed in 2005 and dedicated to pianist Benjamin Harding, this sonata is symphonic in its conception and scale. It frequently relies on many layers of touch to render the fore-, middle-, and background layers that make this work resonant and complex. It is a demanding work that dazzles in it shimmering and layered epic narratives

  1. Allegro - The opening movement has a bold chordal proclamation that sets the restless first movement into motion with a contrasting syncopated melodic second theme. The first movement maintains a tense energy throughout even as it quietly dissipates with a broken statement of the second theme.

  2. Psalm - This is a musical mosaic that evokes the many sensations with the book of Psalms from reverence to wonder to rage. The movement wordlessly prays through the many emotions that humasn experience while always coming back to the opening prayer of suplication.

  3. Toccata - This movement is a tour-de-force of pianism that builds on the various techniques throughout to focus on how a player can approach the many subtle nuances of velocity and duration in the context of fast and slow music to create an orchestral fabric of layers and voices. After a short introduction, the music begins with a constantly surging figure in the left hand that appears in each of the subsequent musical areas. The challenge for the pianist of repeated notes become the greater as they become a contrapuntal line threaded throughout richly textured second and third theme areas.

About the recording: Benjamin Harding recorded this in Los Angeles with engineer Dan Blessinger, using the same microphone configuration as his recordings of Vladimir Horowitz. Harding described it as "fresh, crafted with extreme precision, and inviting." The earliest movement dates from 2005; the complete sonata was finished in 2006.

Instrumentation: Solo piano

Duration: 28 minutes   |   Three movements   |   Virtuoso

Recorded: Benjamin Harding (piano); Grammy-winning engineer Dan Blessinger, A Winter Journal (Hoyer Media, 2023)

What's included: Complete piano score (PDF)

Description: Composed in 2005 and dedicated to pianist Benjamin Harding, this sonata is symphonic in its conception and scale. It frequently relies on many layers of touch to render the fore-, middle-, and background layers that make this work resonant and complex. It is a demanding work that dazzles in it shimmering and layered epic narratives

  1. Allegro - The opening movement has a bold chordal proclamation that sets the restless first movement into motion with a contrasting syncopated melodic second theme. The first movement maintains a tense energy throughout even as it quietly dissipates with a broken statement of the second theme.

  2. Psalm - This is a musical mosaic that evokes the many sensations with the book of Psalms from reverence to wonder to rage. The movement wordlessly prays through the many emotions that humasn experience while always coming back to the opening prayer of suplication.

  3. Toccata - This movement is a tour-de-force of pianism that builds on the various techniques throughout to focus on how a player can approach the many subtle nuances of velocity and duration in the context of fast and slow music to create an orchestral fabric of layers and voices. After a short introduction, the music begins with a constantly surging figure in the left hand that appears in each of the subsequent musical areas. The challenge for the pianist of repeated notes become the greater as they become a contrapuntal line threaded throughout richly textured second and third theme areas.

About the recording: Benjamin Harding recorded this in Los Angeles with engineer Dan Blessinger, using the same microphone configuration as his recordings of Vladimir Horowitz. Harding described it as "fresh, crafted with extreme precision, and inviting." The earliest movement dates from 2005; the complete sonata was finished in 2006.

“...the Piano Sonata has given me the opportunity to process profound thoughts and deep emotions that are both subtle and penetrating. [audiences] are nurtured along the pathways of self-discovery. What they find is a piece that is fresh, crafted with extreme precision, and inviting..”

Benjamin Harding

Listen to the full work

Recorded by pianist Benjamin Harding in 2022. N.B. the third act, Toccata, has been subsequently modified with technical and musical improvements reflected in the score downloadable here. The original and a MIDI rendering of the updated form both linked.