Roberto Sierra: Sonatas 13-14 & Estudios Trascendentales (Transcendental Studies)

Roberto Sierra: Sonatas 13-14 & Estudios Trascendentales (Transcendental Studies) features contemporary piano works by Roberto Sierra, performed by pianist Matthew Bengtson. The album presents Piano Sonatas Nos. 13 and 14 together with Sierra’s Estudios de ejecución trascendental, a virtuosic set of twelve studies inspired by Franz Liszt. The program explores Sierra’s ongoing dialogue with the historical piano repertoire while expressing his distinctive musical voice shaped by Caribbean rhythmic influences and modern compositional techniques.

Sierra’s Piano Sonata No. 13 is conceived as what the composer describes as a “fragmented sonata.” Rather than presenting the traditional four movements in sequence, the music disperses fragments of those movements throughout the work. These fragments create a mosaic-like structure that can be perceived in two ways: as a nonlinear composition and as an implied classical sonata form hidden within the fragments themselves. This experimental approach reflects Sierra’s engagement with Beethoven’s sonata tradition while reimagining its formal logic in contemporary terms.

Piano Sonata No. 14, subtitled “Moonlight,” draws inspiration from Beethoven’s famous Moonlight Sonata. Instead of quoting the work directly, Sierra explores the idea of musical memory. Fragments of Beethoven’s music appear as distant echoes that emerge, dissolve, and transform, illustrating how remembered music can change through time and perception. The sonata was inspired in part by literary ideas associated with Jorge Luis Borges and his fascination with memory and transformation.

The album also includes the Estudios de ejecución trascendental, a set of piano studies conceived as reflections on Liszt’s celebrated Transcendental Études. While references to Liszt’s original material occasionally appear, Sierra reshapes them through his own language, incorporating Afro-Caribbean rhythmic gestures, dense pedal textures, and brilliant pianistic figurations. These works demand exceptional virtuosity while simultaneously exploring new sonic possibilities of the piano.

Recorded in Granada’s Auditorio Manuel de Falla, the album highlights Matthew Bengtson’s close artistic collaboration with Roberto Sierra and his commitment to bringing contemporary piano repertoire to a wider audience.

Matthew Bengtson, Piano