Last year the Henle catalogue very much 
welcomed the addition of Sergei Prokofiev, with the number of our editions of his works growing steadily ever since (see here). The latest new release is sure to make all violinists’ hearts beat faster: The 2nd Violin Sonata in D major op. 94a, an integral part of the violin repertoire, is now available for the first time in a reliable Urtext edition (HN 1624).
David Oistrach (1972)
As is well known, Prokofiev initially composed this sonata for flute and piano in 1942 under the harsh World War II conditions, forcing the composer to flee temporarily from Moscow to Alma-Ata (Almaty) and Molotov (today Perm). Completion of the new work was originally planned for December 1942, but not until the following summer was he able to report to his friend and music functionary Levon Atovmyan: “The flute sonata is almost finished. The reprise of the finale remains to be written up. It ended up being quite substantial: four movements, nearly 40 pages” (letter of 12 August 1943). After Prokofiev returned to Moscow at the end of 1943, he began to rework the solo part for violin at the suggestion of and in collaboration with the legendary violinist David Oistrakh. This sonata version was premiered in Moscow on 17 June 1944 (the flute version had already had its premiere on 7 December 1943).
Owing in part to this somewhat complicated genesis history, five copies of the sonata (full scores and/or individual parts) from the composer’s immediate circle have survived in addition to the autograph, all of them to be evaluated alongside other sources. We were able to engage as editor for this important and very demanding task, the violinist and musicologist Viktoria Zora, who has been researching and publishing on Prokofiev’s violin sonatas for many years. Having studied on site all the original sources in Russian archives, she is familiar, like no one else, with the complex source situation and publication history (If you’d like to delve deeper into this subject, Viktoria Zora’s doctoral thesis is available here).
The informative foreword to our edition was written by Simon Morrison, the world’s foremost Prokofiev scholar. His vivid account of the sonata’s genesis can be viewed gratis on our website. This illustrious company was completed by two internationally outstanding artists: Augustin Hadelich and Charles Owen respectively provided us with their markings of the violin part and the piano fingering. Digitally accessible in our Henle Library App are additionally the historical violin markings by David Oistrakh and Joseph Szigeti.
(By the way: We already have Prokofiev’s 1st Violin Sonata op. 80 underway, with the same “all-star team”….)
First Edition Moscow 1946
The main source for our 2nd Violin Sonata op. 94a edition is the 1946 Soviet first edition authorised and supervised by Prokofiev. That personally he thoroughly proofread the galley proofs is documented by the extant proof sheets with his entries, final changes and his release notice. Though both composer and publishing-house proofreaders overlooked a number of engraver’s errors, we were able to correct these, based on our analyses of the engraver’s model and other manuscript sources.
These numerous corrections and clarifications, primarily concerning bowing, articulation and dynamics, cannot be listed in detail here. To be corrected, additionally, were also quite a few significant errors involving notation and accidentals still haunting modern editions today.
Thus, in measure 46 of the 3rd movement, for example, most editions inadvertently omit a natural sign in the piano, owing to a copying error in the engraver’s model. Earlier manuscripts (as well as the parallel passage in m. 52) make it clear, however, that meant here is a b1:
First edition, Muzgiz, 1946
Henle Urtext edition, 2024
The question of accidentals is much more ambiguous at another spot: In the 2nd movement, the Scherzo, the arpeggiated chord is notated in the piano, m. 190, as follows:
First edition, Muzgiz, 1946
As in the previous example, however, an unnoticed transcription error in the engraver’s model could be blamed for an accidental missing here: in the autograph and two other copies there is clearly a sharp before e1, to be played, hence, as e sharp1. Interestingly enough, a full score published by the violinist Joseph Szigeti in the USA, also appearing in 1946 and allegedly based on a manuscript from the Soviet Union, contains this accidental:
Leeds music edition, 1946
Subsequent new editions inconsistently follow the reading, with or without a sharp sign. In our edition, we place the greatest trust in Prokofiev’s autograph in this matter and have added the sharp sign, though indicating the problem in a footnote.
Henle Urtext edition, 2024
An interesting notational anomaly in the first edition, which has been removed in all later editions still on the market today, has been restored for the first time in our new edition. Prokofiev expressly wanted a distinction to be made in the articulation markings when a slur encounters a dot: in certain cases he deliberately notated the dot outside the slur, as, for example, in this recurring motif in the Scherzo:
First edition, Muzgiz, 1946
Where the engraver had arbitrarily normalised this notation, Prokofiev even changed several places in the galley proofs back to his customised notation. However this nuance may be interpreted when playing, it is important to respect the composer’s wishes here – we know how precise Béla Bartók was in notating precisely this combination of slur and dot.
Henle Urtext edition, 2024
Some questions, though, could not be definitively dealt with even through all philological means…. Thus, in all sources, the following small variant is found in the final movement in mm. 5 and 126, at two otherwise absolutely identical parallel passages:
Henle Urtext edition, 2024, movement 4, m. 5
Henle Urtext edition, 2024, movement 4, m. 126
The a in the second case is the more “normal” note in the D major context, but the b in the first case also sounds good and perhaps even a little more interesting. Did Prokofiev intend this difference, or did he just not remember the fancy b in m. 5 when writing down the repeated passage from memory…? (Presumably some time passed in between, see above the quote from his letter: “The reprise of the finale remains to be written up”…!). We’ve kept the difference true to the source and left it up to performers to decide whether they want to adopt one or the other solution.
Also remaining somewhat enigmatic in the finale is Prokofiev’s idea of tempo. Since indicated in mm. 67 and 145 is Poco meno mosso, we must surely return in between to tempo I, i.e., Allegro con brio (cf. the analogous tempo changes in mm. 30 and 54), though no such indication exists in any of the sources. Not clear, therefore, is whether the faster main tempo is again reached in m. 72 at the beginning of the next section, or only in m. 122 with the return of the main theme – or whether the tempo should perhaps be increased gradually over the entire section. Perhaps David Oistrakh’s later recording gives a hint here, although this is not a binding specification, either.
In our edition, we have ultimately refrained from adding Tempo I at a specific place, referring instead to this open question in a footnote – required here is the performing musicians’ individual musical sensibility. In conclusion, please enjoy the magnificent interpretation of the 2nd Violin Sonata by Augustin Hadelich and Charles Owen, and attend to the finale’s tempo: