‘The three-movement work was completed in November 1990. It is dedicated to my wife, Irina Schnittke, for her birthday. As always, trying to revitalise the sonata form was a problem for me.
Moreover, I am not a pianist myself - over the years I have only played the piano occasionally or as an accompanist. As a result of this inability, I have no relationship with the keyboard. Gradually, however, I stopped thinking about keys, passages and pedals and focussed instead on the content of what I was writing. It then seemed completely uninteresting whether it was new or old, insurmountably difficult or whether it had been there a thousand times before. The only important thing was that it seemed essential to me.
Of course there were difficulties, but everything seemed possible, and my wife mastered things like clusters or the fact that the third movement lacked a consistent metre and changed from second to second. I would like works that are dedicated to a special performer to be reserved for them for two years, and that's how I would like to keep it in this case as well.’
(Alfred Schnittke - From a conversation with Rolf Haglund)
