About this Piece

Though it is labeled Sonata No. 1 and Opus 80, both numbers are misleading in the identification of this sonata. Prokofiev began it in 1938, two years after returning to the Soviet Union from years abroad, but he did not complete it until 1946. In between came World War II and numerous other works Prokofiev composed or completed during the war years, including the Violin Sonata No. 2, Op. 94a.  

Prokofiev said this sonata was inspired by one of Handel’s violin sonatas, and its four-movement structure, slow-fast-slow-fast, does follow the outline of a Baroque church sonata. All four movements are about equal length, but Prokofiev said that the first served as an extended introduction to the second, a kind of haunted prelude that ends with whispering muted scales that should sound “like the wind in a graveyard,” as Prokofiev told David Oistrakh, who premiered the work.

The second movement is a vigorously brawling debate, and the third movement is a warmly rocking lullaby, although it does not keep all the ghosts at bay. The finale is a folk dance in shifting meters, driven in the composer’s characteristically biting toccata style, though it ends serenely after a recollection of the “wind in a graveyard” from the first movement.

—John Henken