Sonata No 5 op 61

The sequence F ? G ? D ? C – tentatively stated in bar 2 – forms the backbone of Kapustin’s fifth Piano Sonata, op. 61, which he composed in 1991. The first movement functions as a sketchbook of musical ideas in various moods and at contrasting speeds, and the second’s slow choral-spiritual feel reminds one of the same movement in the sixth Sonata that followed later that year. The finale, with its heavy blue thirds and offbeat staccato quavers, could easily have been Kapustin’s eleventh Bagatelle; the whole Sonata, brimful with rapid twists and turns that are brought together cohesively in this last movement, last just 12 minutes.