A programme that brings together two compositions very far from each other in time, both entitled Sonata, promises much for the imagination. The two Sonatas, for opposing reasons, were the last sonatas to be published during the lifetime of the two composers. Between them, like a bridge, is a piece permeated by the memory of water: how, then, can one give form to this intertwining?

A profound ambiguity, between smiling and melancholy, inhabits the poetic world of the Sonata in G major, op.78, D894. Schubert had very clear ideas about the formal structure of the piece, thinking of a unified structure in four movements. Schubert had already seen that framework dissolve in the hands of his beloved Beethoven, who, in the two Sonatas of op.27, blurred the lines with regard to his scores, constructing complex, sometimes cyclical structures in which all traditional patterns disintegrate, creating a genre that is increasingly difficult to appreciate: on the other hand, with the Sonata in A minor, D845, Schubert had already been designated by music critics as the possible successor to such experimentation.

Luciano Berio, who dedicated memorable tributes to Schubert such as Rendering (1989/90), also experimented, in the last years of his life, with the form that so obsessed Schubert: Sonata (2001) is a wonderful piece that brings both his career and his piano repertoire to a close.

To explain how to approach it, we would like to pass the word to Marco Uvietta, who was able to study its structure closely, consulting with the composer himself: Berio speaks of the Sonata as a structure made up of different blocks, which are held together by elements that act as continuous transitions. In the words of the composer: ‘just as when traveling by train, the landscapes change, but the pylons continue to pass before our eyes, and we always look out of the same window.’