Sonata No. 3

 

Richard Wernick’s third piano sonata begins as a musical outgrowth of his first; what functioned as the fading away of the earlier work is now the impetus for a whole new piece, with its first movement titled “... a coda completed.” The second movement is just plain fun,“The Sunken Synagogue – with a Fiddler on the Roof” referencing Debussy’s The Sunken Cathedral, its piety interrupted by bits of scherzo-like “fiddling” perhaps more inspired by Chagall than by Tevye. The third movement, “Bits and Pieces,” takes fragments from the prior movements and develops them in fresh ways.