Schnittke: Sonata No. 2 (Quasi una Sonata) for violin and piano

The violin sonatas by Alfred Schnittke extend over his whole career. The First Sonata is among his earliest major pieces while the Second Sonata typifies the confrontational manner of the works that followed. The much later Third Sonata possesses the spareness and simplicity found in the music from the composer’s last decade, paradoxically shared with the two movements of a violin sonata that Schnittke wrote as a student in 1954 and 1955, and that was only discovered after his death.