Piano Sonata (1955)

Together with Sinfonietta for two string orchestras, Sonata for piano, which was added to Kazimierz Serocki’s catalogue in 1955, crowns the first period in his creative journey. The piece comprises primarily neoclassical and virtuoso elements and when it comes to important stylistic inspirations – “the percussiveness of Prokofiev, barbarism of Bartók and Szymanowski’s nationalism.” (Humphrey Searle quoted by Bogusław Maciejewski in Twelve Polish Composers, p. 121).

However, these idioms are transformed so much here that they make up a completely new, original quality. Sonata testifies, on the one hand, to Serocki’s interest in sound and on the other – to his efforts to renew a traditional musical form. During the piece the melody and harmony are often transformed into “purely sonorous values” – dynamic accents or ethereal murmurs, typical of Serocki’s later sonoristic works.  In addition, the four movements of the Sonata are not just creative transformations of the “classic” sonata-, variation- or ternary form, but also four different “characters” – restless and turbulent in Inquietamente, quick and ethereal in Veloce, elegiac and calm in Elegiaco as well as barbarian and wild in Barbaro (the title of this movement is a direct reference to Bartók). This is a clear foretaste of Serocki’s later concepts concerning the expressive and emotional content of a musical work.

Worthy of note is also the excellence of the piano texture in the Sonata, which is idiomatic for the instrument and does not let us forget that the composer was also an exceptionally talented pianist.