Sikorski
‘The sonata for violoncello and piano from 1978 is dedicated to Natalia Gutman and was premiered by her and Vasily Lobanov in Moscow in January 1979. It has three movements Largo - Presto - Largo. The short first movement (as in the 2nd Violin Sonata) is an anticipation of the last; it is the aphoristic formula of an event that is experienced in the following formal sequence. The second movement has the character of a perpetuum mobile (although it is a sonata form). It is a frenzied run which is cut short and after which the slow contemplative finale occurs (with a faint shadow of the Presto whirl at the end). The tonal language is ambiguously tonal-atonal: twelve-tone rows (in the 2nd movement) have a ‘tonal’ metrical structure. Triads tend towards atonality thanks to the ‘split’ double tones (c-g-e-c sharp or c sharp-g-e-c or c-e flat-e or c-e-g-e flat).’ (Alfred Schnittke)