Andante et Allegro (1881)

Andante – Allegro

The Andante et Allegro, Chausson’s one score featuring a solo wind instrument, was written when he was still a student at the Paris Conservatoire – perhaps as an exercise set by his teacher, Jules Massenet, or possibly as a gesture to a friend who played the clarinet. We know little about it because, far from attempting to promote it, the composer persisted in withholding it from view: it did not appear in print until nearly eighty years after his death. But certainly, whatever the occasion of its composition, he took the work very seriously – which was to be characteristic of Chausson throughout his career. The Andante opens with a sombre piano introduction, provoking expressive speculation from the clarinet and then a melodious cantilena that makes effective use of the higher register of the instrument over an undulating accompaniment. Following without a break, the Allegro is not the light-hearted contrast that might have been expected at this point but a passionate little sonata-form construction with a cadenza before the recall of the main theme and a virtuoso coda.