Hyperion Records

The young Scharwenka had already gained valuable experience in writing in larger forms with the sonata for violin and piano, Op 2 (1869), and his first Piano Sonata, composed in 1871 and dedicated to his teacher Kullak, is a youthful work full of ambition, sustaining a constant driving energy within a fairly formal sonata framework. The work is cast in four movements, with the scherzo being placed second. The rather short slow third movement really serves as an introduction to a furious and impassioned finale. A new edition with some small revisions appeared around 1905, but the version here is the original.

from notes by Martin Eastick © 2002