Description
Protopopov's opus magnum was the Sonata for piano, Op. 6, which took him from 1924 until 1928 to complete. It was dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci, whose genius was perhaps something the composer aspired to. This 30-minute piece takes on colossal dimensions. One gets the feeling the composer poured his heart and soul into this work. Like the sonata before, it was composed in one uninterrupted movement and very sparse in its thematic material, but in this piece the composer has gone off the rails much more. Near the end, the music builds to a climax that goes on for several minutes, confronting the listener with complex chords, cascading octave passages in multiple layers and lots of repetition. It is an unrelenting bombardment of sound that the composer could not have written without being haunted by some kind of mania.
