1986
Sonata No. 2 for two pianos





To Sergei Rachmaninov
40m
Composer (manuscript copy)
MZK. 13.04. 1987.
Author and A. Fomenko
MZK. 10/28/1987
Author and A. Fomenko
RZK. 01/25/1996
Dmitry Sakharov and A. Fomenko
Sonata No. 2 in the form of variations for two pianos has a unique motto – the theme of the Latvian folk song “White Birches Behind the Lake”. The Latvian theme arose because the Sonata was initially composed at the request of the Riga piano duet (Nora Novik and Raffi Kharajanyan). However, the origin of the song is of no importance here: this Sonata is one of the most “Rachmaninov” works of the composer, and it is dedicated to the memory of S.V. Rachmaninov . Perhaps the prototype of the Sonata is Rachmaninov’s Variations on the Theme of Paganini – Butsko’s favorite work. Hence the wide, tense waves of culminations and declines that can be heard in the musical fabric of the Sonata, when a very simple folk melody grows into a grandiose sound structure and returns back to clarity and simplicity.
