À Mademe Alexandrine de Kologrivoff

• Allegro con moto
• Thema: Var.I-Andante, Var.II-Più lento, Var.III-Allegretto, Var.IV-Tempo Primo
• Vivace

Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 were composed around 1854, during the same period. They are built upon a Mendelssohnian academic and formal sense of structure, and express the fervent passion of the young Rubinstein. Rubinstein, who impulsively dashed off works up to Op. 60 in his twenties, later reconsidered and revised most of the compositions from this period.

This Second Sonata is an early work. Like the 'Appassionata Sonata', it has a three-movement structure with a variation movement as the second movement. The fervent rush of triplets in the final movement is quoted in almost the same form in the coda of the final movement of his close friend Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 2.