Sonata for Two Pianos is a composition by Russian composer

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

, premiered in 1944 by Richard Johnston and

Nadia Boulanger Juliette Nadia Boulanger (; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. From a ...

. First conceived as a solo work, Stravinsky needed to write it for

four hands 'Four Hands' is a Taiwanese drama directed by You-Ning Lee, starring Wu Hsing-kuo. The movie premiered on 12 October 2014 in Taiwan. The story depicts a veteran of the Republic of China Army from Shantung who settled in Taiwan, separated from his ...

to voice all four melodic lines clearly.Richard Carpenter
Stravinsky: Sonata for Two Pianos

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

website (Accessed 10 October 2011). It is considered one of Stravinsky's most important compositions for two solo pianos, together with

Concerto for Two Pianos The Concerto for Two Pianos (sometimes also referred to as Concerto for Two Solo Pianos or rather as its Italian original name, Concerto per due pianoforti soli) is a composition by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was finished on November 9, ...

Structure

The

sonata Sonata (; Italian: , pl. ''sonate''; from Latin and Italian: ''sonare'' rchaic Italian; replaced in the modern language by ''suonare'' "to sound"), in music, literally means a piece ''played'' as opposed to a cantata (Latin and Italian ''cant ...

is in three movements, though one CD recording indexes the

theme Theme or themes may refer to: * Theme (arts), the unifying subject or idea of the type of visual work * Theme (Byzantine district), an administrative district in the Byzantine Empire governed by a Strategos * Theme (computing), a custom graphical ...

and four

variations Variation or Variations may refer to: Science and mathematics * Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon * Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individuals ...

of the second movement separately.
Stravinsky: Music for Two Pianos: The Rite of Spring, Sonata, Concerto
'. Benjamin Frith and Peter Hill (pianos). Naxos 8.553386. Hong Kong: Naxos Records, 1996. Track listing on Naxos.com (Accessed 10 October 2011).] However, it is in only three movements.

References

{{Authority control Compositions by Igor Stravinsky Compositions for two pianos 1944 compositions