Piano Sonata No. 3

Piano Sonata No. 3, composed in 1992. One of Schnittke's last significant piano works, composed after his series of debilitating strokes had severely restricted his physical capacity. The Third Sonata is the most concentrated and austere of the three, reduced to essentials — sparse textures, extreme dynamic contrasts, and a harmonic language stripped of the polystylistic surface ornaments of his earlier work in favour of a more inward, skeletal austerity. It is one of the most personal documents of his final creative period.