Sonata n°3 for piano in F major, Anthropo-scene
Musique : Rex Potam
I seldom need to introduce my music. THis one is an exception: because it is a program music, I have to introduce its main points so that the listener, but also the performer, can understand what I wanted to imply, and how to interpret this sonata.
This introduction is also (in French) in the sheet music.
This sonata for piano is titled Anthropo-scene. Its ambition is to describe the evolution of humanity since the dawn of times until nowadays.
The ambition is so huge I had to limit its scope. As I need a point of view, I kept centered on my 21st century Frenchman one. This choice is pure convinience; I am aware that I had to limit my conmposition and keep many things out of it.
The first movement, the longest, concentrates the majority of the human evolution. The end of the movement happens around the end of the 17th century, just before the fall of the French Old Regime. Obviously it is in sonata form, with a pastoral theme putting the light on a (certainly idealized) vision of people without the latest technological progress.
The second movement is a waltz. Its backdrop is the French Revolution and the industrial revolution of the 19th century. It is a transitional movement that accelerates towards the third one.
The third movement is most certainly the craziest. Its focus is our contemporary periods, beginning with the two World Wars. It is a rond form, with a theme that keeps coming back and describes not only both Wars, but also, unfortunately, the one that is a bit too much in the air…
The rondo’s intermezzos describe the inter-war periods, including the Cold War with its two blocks, concluded by a very well-known prelude that may be the emblem of that period: the fall of the Berlin wall. After that, there is an episode on our current life, with its contradictions, rises and falls.
The movement (and hence the sonata) concludes on future episodes as we seem to be currently preparing for, maybe painful, before closing on a vision, certainly optimistic, of what happens next. What would we be without any hope?
