PF2023 Brochure - Flipbook - Page 20
MALCOLM ARNOLD (1921-2006)
Oboe Sonatina, Op 28
HENRI DUTILLEUX (1916-2013)
Sarabande et Cortège
1 Leggiero
2 Andante con moto
3 Vivace
1 Assez lent
2 Mouvement de marche
Dutilleux studied at the Paris Conservatoire from
1933 to 1938, crowning his studies with victory in
the prestigious Prix de Rome. However, due to the
outbreak of World War II, he spent four months
rather than four years in Rome, enlisting in the army
as a stretcher-bearer before France fell in September
1940. He returned to Paris, where he scratched a living
teaching privately, arranging popular standards for
café bands, composing for propaganda films and as
temporary chef de chant at the Paris Opéra. He was
also involved with the musical section of the Front
National (no connection to today’s political party),
a support group sympathetic to the Résistance
movement. Dutilleux became chef de chant for the
Radiodiffusion in 1943, remaining there for the next
twenty years.
Malcolm Arnold composed four Sonatinas for wind
instruments and piano between 1948 and 1953,
for flute, oboe, clarinet and recorder. Each is a little
under eight minutes long and designed to please
both audience and performers alike. The character
of the solo instrument (and perhaps that of the
original performer) plays a critical part in deciding
the mood of each sonatina; in the Oboe Sonatina,
this is defined in lyrical but urbane themes, with
decorations and contrasts of cantabile and staccato,
the long melodies being subtly organised.
The Oboe Sonatina, written for Leon Goossens in
1951, was premiered by him at the (then) Northern
College of Music, Manchester, on 15 January 1952.
A compositional task Dutilleux found particularly
congenial was writing test pieces for end of year
examinations at the Conservatoire; the Sarabande et
Cortège for bassoon and piano (1942), the Sonatine
for flute and piano (1943), the Oboe Sonata (1947)
and the Choral, cadence et fugato for trombone and
piano (1950) are far from being virtuosic technical
studies, though when written, they pushed technical
boundaries. Sarabande et Cortège couples a stately
slow dance with a quirky processional and the
two sections are linked by a mini bassoon cadenza
spanning the entire range of the instrument.
20