Weinberg’s fraught early life included two dramatic escapes from the Nazis, as he made his way from his native Poland to the Soviet Union. His eventual arrival in Moscow in August 1943 saw a period of relative stability in his personal life and an extraordinary burst of creative vitality. Sonata No 3, composed in the space of a week at the end of January 1946, represents a conspicuous advance on its predecessors. The deeply expressive, technically challenging and superbly varied Nos 5 (1956) and 6 (1960) are the last of the numbered piano sonatas.
