Rachmaninoff – Piano Sonata No. 2 – Hélène Grimaud
Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 36, in B-Flat Minor, was composed by Sergei Rachmaninov in 1913. Rachmaninoff revised it in 1931, with the note, “The new version, revised and reduced by author.” Three years after his third piano concerto was finished, Rachmaninoff moved with his family to a house in Rome that Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had used and started working on the sonata. However, because both of his daughters contracted typhoid fever, Rachmaninoff moved his family on to Berlin in order to consult with doctors. When the girls were well enough, Rachmaninoff traveled with his family back to his Ivanovka country estate, where he finished the second piano sonata. – Hélène Grimaud
