For solo piano

Sonata

No. 2 · Il Segno

A seventeen-minute piano sonata whose title, “The Sign,” suggests a mark, omen or trace left inside musical memory.

Year 2006
Duration 17′
Scoring Solo
Piano
Publisher Boosey & Hawkes
/ Sikorski

Commission

Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk, Cologne.

World Premiere

3 July 2006. Bonn · Lera Auerbach, piano.

Title

Il Segno. The Sign.

Movements

  • I.

    Adagio tragico

  • II.

    Toccata · Allegro

  • III.

    Grave

  • IV.

    Allegro · Molto meno mosso

Work Information

Full Title
Sonata · No. 2 · Il Segno
Scoring
For solo piano.
Year
2006
Duration
17′
Form
Sonata in four movements.
Instrumentation
Commission
Commissioned by Deutschlandfunk, Cologne.
World Premiere
3 July 2006 · Bonn; Lera Auerbach, piano.
Publisher
Availability
Score available for purchase through Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski.

The Work

Sonata · No. 2 · Il Segno is a four-movement work for solo piano. Its title, “The Sign,” gives the sonata a concentrated emblem: a mark left by sound, memory or fate, something small enough to be missed and decisive enough to alter the entire landscape.

The work moves through sharply differentiated states: tragic stillness, toccata-like propulsion, grave suspension and a final movement that releases and transforms the sonata’s accumulated pressure. The piano is treated as a site of inscription: impact, resonance and silence all become part of the mark.

A sonata of signs and afterimages, where gesture becomes mark and memory becomes form.
  • Form Sonata in four movements.
  • Duration Approximately 17 minutes.
  • Forces Solo piano.

Context

Il Segno follows La Fenice by one year and continues Auerbach’s engagement with the piano sonata as a living dramatic form. It is shorter and more compressed, but no less charged: the title points away from narrative explanation and toward the force of a single sign.

In this sonata, contrast is architectural. The movements do not merely follow one another; they leave impressions, wounds and traces. The result is a tightly drawn work in which form feels inseparable from memory.

Not a declaration, but a sign: something seen, sounded, remembered, and never entirely explained.

Online Materials

Public links related to Sonata · No. 2 · Il Segno. Recordings and streaming links are grouped here only; the main work information above remains limited to the work itself.

Publisher and Materials

Published by Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski. The score is available through the official Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski purchase page. Rental material has been intentionally omitted because this is a solo piano work available for purchase.