Clarinet Sonata

The Sonate pour clarinette et piano (Clarinet Sonata), FP 184, for clarinet in B-flat and piano by Francis Poulenc dates from 1962 and is one of the last pieces he completed. It is dedicated to the memory of Arthur Honegger, who like Poulenc had belonged to the group Les Six. A typical performance takes 12–14 minutes.

The sonata is in three movements:

The structure differs somewhat from the fast-slow-fast pattern of a traditional sonata in that the first movement is itself split into three sections in the pattern fast-slow-fast. It bears the somewhat paradoxical subtitle "Allegro tristamente": accordingly, the piece is always in motion, but proceeds with a sense of grieving. After a brief fortissimo introduction consisting of angry spurts of figuration in the clarinet punctuated by piano chords, the piano quiets to a murmur. The clarinet's lines are built of a self-perpetuating series of arcs. At one point the clarinet leaps up and down between octave B tones over a shifting harmonic background. The movement ends in a melancholy mood.

The clarinet melody in the second movement Romanza begins simply, but is elaborately embroidered in a few places. Two particularly poignant examples are the sixty-fourth note runs near the beginning, and the trembling half-step figure that appears at the beginning and end.

The third movement, "Allegro con fuoco," is nimble, articulate, and rhapsodic, bookended by a delightfully clownish tune.

The clarinetist Benny Goodman, who commissioned the piece, was intended to premiere it with the composer accompanying. Poulenc died suddenly of a heart attack on 30 January 1963 before it was published, and an editor was employed to ascertain the identity of some notes, as well as provide missing dynamics and articulations. The premiere was given at New York City's Carnegie Hall by Benny Goodman and Leonard Bernstein on 10 April 1963. Harold C. Schonberg, music critic of The New York Times had this to say: "Poulenc was not a 'big' composer, for his emotional range was too restricted. But what he did, he did perfectly, and his music shows remarkable finish, style and refinement.... The sonata...is typical Poulenc. In the first movement, skittish thematic elements are broken up by a broadly melodic middle section. The slow movement is one of those melting, long-phrased and unabashed sentimental affairs that nobody but Poulenc could carry off. Weakest of the three movements is the finale, which races along but has little immediacy. Here Poulenc's inspiration seems to have run out."