Ustvolskaya: Piano Sonata No.5

Introduction

The Fifth Sonata was composed 29 years after the Fourth and is in ten parts, performed without a break. As a whole, the sonata has an obsessive D♭4 that allows for cohesion of all the parts. Like the Sixth sonata, this work features chord clusters and violent dynamic contrasts - Alex Ross even commenting that, "she has colonized the higher end of the dynamic spectrum much as Morton Feldman took possession of the lower." The music also features an economical use of thematic material - mostly quarter notes in two-part counterpoint at a moderately slow tempo.