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- Lennox Berkeley
Sonatina for oboe and piano (1962)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
Written for Janet and John Craxton
Programme Note
Sonatina For Oboe and Piano
Lennox Berkeley must be tired of the word ‘Gallic’ which had been applied to his music ever since he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger over forty years ago; but if the adjective implies a certain elegant understatement and a crisp, unsentimental lucidity, combined with a certain pungency, its use is inescapable. His language still shows some indebtedness to Stravinsky’s neo-classic period, even though he begins his Oboe Sonatina (dedicated to Janet and John Craxton and published in 1964) with a twelve-note row (soon abandoned) and makes extensive use in the finale of augmented triads.
The first movement is classically structured, with a gracefully contoured first subject, a forceful ensuing idea and a murmurously lyrical second subject; the second movement generates an intensity of feeling which is the greater for the very restraint of its language; and the finale effectively introduces calm moments to offset the prevailing syncopated ebullience.
Lionel Salter
Lennox Berkeley must be tired of the word ‘Gallic’ which had been applied to his music ever since he studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger over forty years ago; but if the adjective implies a certain elegant understatement and a crisp, unsentimental lucidity, combined with a certain pungency, its use is inescapable. His language still shows some indebtedness to Stravinsky’s neo-classic period, even though he begins his Oboe Sonatina (dedicated to Janet and John Craxton and published in 1964) with a twelve-note row (soon abandoned) and makes extensive use in the finale of augmented triads.
The first movement is classically structured, with a gracefully contoured first subject, a forceful ensuing idea and a murmurously lyrical second subject; the second movement generates an intensity of feeling which is the greater for the very restraint of its language; and the finale effectively introduces calm moments to offset the prevailing syncopated ebullience.
Lionel Salter