Piano Sonata No. 3

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• Piano Sonata No. 3 (Schnittke) en
  Piano Sonata No. 3 (1992), the last major piano work of Schnittke's life and one of his most uncompromisingly austere. Composed in the final years of his life when he had suffered multiple strokes, the Third Sonata strips away the polystylistic surface of earlier works in favour of a spare, skeletal language of extreme concentration. The work is not conventionally 'difficult' in a virtuosic sense, but demands extraordinary control of tone, silence, and timing.
  Silence is as structural as sound in this work: pauses must be held with full commitment, not merely observed. The extremely sparse textures require absolute tonal control at every dynamic level. Approach the Third Sonata as a late work in the tradition of Beethoven's Op. 111 or Schubert's final sonatas — music that has moved beyond the need to demonstrate.