Uploaded March 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Sonata for Piano in D (1943)

Frank Glazer, piano

Harol Shapero’s Sonata for Piano in D was completed in 1943, and was first performed by the composer at concerts of the League of Composers in New York City. It has since been played throughout Europe and Asia by several pianists, in arrangements for both piano and harpsichord. Frank Glazer has performed it often in his American and European concert tours.

Mr. Shapero has kindly provided the following analysis: “The Sonata is clearly in a style which has been often called ‘international neo-classic’, and takes its inspiration from the keyboard music of Scarlatti, K.P.E. Bach, and Haydn. Integrated with these traditional elements are familiar twentieth-century materials and some slight references to jazz. A formal analysis of the Sonata runs as follows:

Allegro precisco — sonata allegro in D
Poco adagio — five-part song form in G
Minuetto — three-part ABA Minuet-Scherzo in B-flat minor
Presto — seven-part rondo in D.” [CS-217]

Art by Emma Kohlmann