Flute Sonata in D major, Op.94

When David Oistrakh heard the first performance of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata in D at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1943 his immediate reaction was to ask the composer for an alternative version for violin. The composer readily agreed. At the back of both their minds perhaps was the thought that, effective though it is on the flute, the work has the structural proportions and the expressive scope to make it even more suitable for violin. What had happened, apparently, is that the sonata ha outgrown the dimensions originally intended for it. “The sonata for flute is almost finished,” Prokofiev wrote to a friend in the summer of 1943. “It has turned out to be quite bulky.” In fact the last movement is the longest of the four and its climaxes need a bulky sound.

Although Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata was appropriated for violin at an early stage in its existence by David Oistrakh – who had asked Prokofiev to arrange it for him immediately after its first performance in 1943 and who established it firmly in the repertoire as Violin Sonata No.2 – it is even more effective in its original version. Along with Poulenc’s Flute Sonata, it is one of the two most successful works of its kind.

The opening Andantino is perfectly conceived for flute and piano with two lyrical main themes so much at ease on their introduction by the flute that it is difficult to imagine them on any other instrument. Although the second movement is identified as a Scherzo only in the violin arrangement, it is a characteristic example of that particular kind in both versions, conforming to a regular ternary pattern with a capriciously exotic middle section clearly inspired by the flute’s linear flexibility and brilliant outer sections by its agility. The Andante is a short, expressive romance conceived for the most part in terms of the intimate sound of the flute in its lower register.

If any of the four movements might be thought to require the resources of the violin it is the last, which is not only more complex in design but also more dramatic than any of the others. The explosive opening theme is no more beyond the powers of the flute, however, than the delicately nostalgic which intervenes before a resumption of the opening activity and a coda that calls for everything it can give to match the piano in exuberant figuration and celebratory colour.

Gerald Larner©

When David Oistrakh heard the first performance of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata in D, at the Moscow Conservatoire in December 1943, his immediate reaction was to ask the composer to make him an arrangement for violin. Prokofiev readily agreed. At the back of both their minds perhaps was the thought that, effective though it is on the flute, the work has the structural proportions and the expressive scope to make it even more suitable for an instrument with a more extensive range and a bigger sound. Writing to a friend in the summer of 1943 with the news that the Flute Sonata was almost finished, Prokofiev did in fact confess that “it has turned out to be quite bulky.”

The opening Moderato seems perfectly conceived for either instrument. It has a short exposition with two lyrical main themes, both introduced (in this version) by the violin. The first is poignantly nostalgic in D major and the second, in spite of a more dramatic intervention on the piano, still a little wistful in dotted rhythms in A major. The development transforms them not by varying their melodic outlines but by confronting them, usually on the piano, with the disturbing fanfare motif first heard on violin at the beginning of the section. The recapitulation purges them of their anxiety and ends the movement calmly in D major.

The cheerful main theme of the Scherzo, however, is unthinkable without its occasional pizzicato note, while the comparatively languorous D major middle section is so enterprisingly rescored for violin that it seems it must have been conceived that way. The short and lyrical Andante, on the other hand, is much the same in the two versions. Whether it is the flute or the violin that prolongs the elaborate triplet figuration of the middle section, adding it as a decoration to the main theme recalled by the piano in the wrong key, the effect is just as enchanting.

The “bulky” aspect of the last movement is not so much the explosive main theme in D major or the heavy piano ostinato overlaid by convulsive A major arpeggios on the violin, still less the thoughtfully extended middle section. But when the first theme reappears fortissimo, at the top of a long crescendo, the structural situation both here and in the coda calls for everything the violin can give it in terms of double-stopped chords and resounding pizzicato sonorities.

When David Oistrakh heard the first performance of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata in D, at the Moscow Conservatoire in December 1943, his immediate reaction was to ask the composer to make him an arrangement for violin. Prokofiev readily agreed. At the back of both their minds perhaps was the thought that, effective though it is on the flute, the work has the structural proportions and the expressive scope to make it even more suitable for an instrument with a more extensive range and a bigger sound. Writing to a friend in the summer of 1943 with the news that the Flute Sonata was almost finished, Prokofiev did in fact confess that “it has turned out to be quite bulky.”

The opening Moderato seems perfectly conceived for either instrument. It has a short exposition with two lyrical main themes, both introduced (in this version) by the violin, the first faintly nostalgic in D major, the second still a little wistful in dotted rhythms in A major. The development section transforms them, not by varying their melodic outlines but by applying to them, usually but not exclusively on the piano, the curious trumpet-and drum motif introduced by the violin at the beginning of the section. The recapitulation purges them of their anxiety and ends the movement calmly in D major – though, after the pianist’s last-minute deflection of the tonality into B flat minor, only just.

It is a mark of a good arrangement that it is impossible to imagine it in any other colours. What, for example, could possibly be as effective as the odd note of left-hand pizzicato inserted in the cheerful first theme of the Scherzo? Like most scherzos, this is in ternary form but it is more complex than most, since the outer sections before and after the languorous D major middle are themselves ternary constructions. The ternary pattern of the short Andante is more conventional. It is quite straightforward until two thirds of the way through, when the violin continues the elaborate triplet figuration of the middle section and adds it as a decoration to the main theme which the piano has recalled, enchantingly, in G flat major instead of F.

The last movement is yet another ternary construction and still more complex. The ternary first section is based on an explosive theme in D major which appears before and after a slow passage, itself a miniature ternary construction, with a piano ostinato overlaid by convulsive A major arpeggios on the violin. There is an extended middle section which is thoughtful at first and then gradually more active as it returns to D major. It is at the end of this crescendo, when the first theme reappears fortissimo, that the music calls for everything the violin can give it in double-stopped chords and resounding pizzicato.

The first performance of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1943, was a great success. It was so successful in fact that David Oistrakh, who happened to be in the audience on that occasion, wanted the work for himself and immediately asked the composer for an alternative version for violin. Surely not because Oistrakh was right in thinking that the work required the dynamic and expressive scope of the violin to realise its potential, but certainly because of his exceptional powers as a performer, the so-called Second Violin Sonata eclipsed the original version for some time. The Flute Sonata did eventually emerge from the shadow, however, and now the two versions quite happily co-exist, sharing the same piano part and agreeing to differ where flute and violin problems require different solutions.

The opening Andantino is perfectly conceived for the flute. It has two lyrical main themes, one of them faintly nostalgic at first in D major, the other still a little wistful in dotted rhythms in A major, and both so much at ease on their introduction by the flute that it is difficult to imagine them on any other instrument. They are developed not so much by varying their melodic outlines as by applying to them the strangely alien trumpet-and drum motif introduced by the flute just after the exposition repeat. The recapitulation purges them of their anxiety and ends the movement calmly in D major but, after the piano’s last-minute diversion towards B flat minor, only just.

Although the A-minor second movement is identified as a Scherzo only in the Violin Sonata, it is a characteristic example of that particular kind in both versions, conforming to a regular ternary pattern with a languorously but capriciously exotic middle section and brilliant outer sections betraying just a fleeting hint of a waltz here and there. The short Andante, an expressive romance in F major, seems to conform to a regular ternary pattern too - but only until a point about two thirds of the way through, where the flute continues the elaborate triplet figuration of the middle section and adds its as a counterpoint to the main theme enchantingly recalled by the piano in entirely the wrong key.

If any of the four movements might be thought to require the resources of the violin it is the last. Yet another ternary construction, it is not only more complex in design but also more dramatic than any of the others. The first section is based on an explosive theme in D major that alternates with a passage that is slower and heavier but, with its convulsive flute arpeggios, no less eventful. The extended F major middle section relapses into introspection at first and then gradually becomes more active as the harmonies return towards D major. It is at the end of this recovery process and a full-scale recapitulation, that the structural situation calls for a coda with everything the flute can give it in terms of volume and celebratory colour.

Gerald Larner©

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Three Romances, Op.94 (1849)

Nicht schnell

Einfach, innig

Nicht schnell

In the first half of 1849 the city of Dresden, where Robert and Clara Schumann had taken a flat in the Waisenhausstrasse four or five years earlier, was in a state of violent political unrest. Far from distracting the composer from his work, however, the situation positively encouraged him to get on with it. "I've been very busy for some time now," Schumann wrote to his colleague Ferdinand Hiller, "It's been my most fruitful year. It’s just as if outward storms drove one more into oneself." Unlike Richard Wagner, he avoided taking an active part in the revolution which definitively broke out in Dresden in May – preferring to take refuge outside the city for six weeks or so – and he did indeed produce a phenomenal amount of high-quality music at this time, little of it affected by events in the world outside.

The Three Romances, Op.94, are a late addition to the series of lyrical chamber works (the Fantasy Pieces, Op.73, the Adagio and Allegro, Op.70, the Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op.102) written amid the turmoil of the first few months of the year. Perhaps because they were intended to celebrate Clara’s birthday in December, they are even more intimate than those earlier pieces – which, although they were published with alternative versions for clarinet and violin, makes them particularly appropriate to the confiding voice of the flute.

The opening Nicht schnell (not fast) in A minor is a particularly spontaneous expression with a poetic subtlety in its continuity. It is not at all clear until near the end which is the main theme, the flowing quavers of the flute’s first entry or the broader melody introduced by the same instrument a few bars later. The scherzando material in the middle is so briefly exposed and so discreetly approached that it could be part of the development, although it actually turns out to be the central section of an elusively asymmetrical ternary construction with the quaver theme playing a definitively prominent part towards the end.

The Einfach, innig (simple, inward) is a contrastingly straightforward ternary movement, its charmingly melodious outer sections in A minor effectively offset by a more agitated middle section in F sharp minor. The Nicht schnell third movement is no less well defined in construction but slightly more complex – because of the contradictory nature of the outer sections, where A minor melancholy alternates with C major vivacity, the exquisitely ambiguous harmonies of the middle section, and the briefly retrospective coda that finally settles the tonality in A major.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Clarinet Sonata in E flat major Op.120 No.2 (1894)

arranged for flute and piano

Allegro amabile – Tranquillo

Allegro appassionato – Sostenuto – Tempo I

Andante con moto    – Allegro – Più tranquillo

On completing his String Quintet in G major in 1890 Brahms declared that it would be his last composition. Less than a year later he heard the playing of Richard Mühlfeld, the self-taught clarinettist of the Meiningen Orchestra, and changed his mind. It was for Mühlfeld, his “Primadonna”as he called him, that Brahms wrote his last four chamber works – the Trio in A minor Op.114 and the Quintet in B minor Op.115 at Bad Ischl in the summer of 1891 and the two Sonatas Op.120 at the same resort in the Salzkammergut three years later.

Of the two sonatas, which were also published in alternative versions for viola, the second is the one more likely to flourish in an arrangement for flute. As their respective tonalities suggest, the first in F minor is the more dramatic while its less eventful companion in E flat major seems to aspire to recapture the idyll represented by the Violin Sonata in A major written at Lake Thun in Switzerland five years earlier. The first movements of both the Violin Sonata in A and the present Sonata in E flat are headed Allegro amabile and are scarcely clouded in their lyricism. There is a touch of regret in the latter, however – not surprisingly perhaps in what Brahms surely knew would be his last chamber work. Even the sunny opening theme of the Allegro amabile, heard on the flute in the opening bars, has a touch of nostalgia about it and that melody dominates, though discreetly, the whole of the movement. Its salient intervals are incorporated in the second subject, which is introduced hesitantly by the flute in a sort of canon with the piano, while the third theme presented by the flute is a close variant of the first. An apparently affortless and seamless construction sinks gently into a tranquillo coda.

The Allegro appassionato begins defiantly in E flat minor and, although its efforts are rewarded by the apparent reassurance of a broadly melodious middle section in B major, it ends in regretful resignation. Harmonically unrealistic though that reassurance proved to be, however, the closing movement – Brahms’s very last set of variations, incidentally – demonstrates that its message was not entirely misleading. The fifth variation, a protesting Allegro initiated in E flat minor by the piano, resolves into a less agitated (Più tranquillo) but joyful E flat major ending.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Flute Sonata in D major Op.94 (1943)

Andantino

Allegro

Andante

Allegro con brio

The first performance of Prokofiev’s Flute Sonata at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1943, was a great success. It was so successful in fact that David Oistrakh, who happened to be in the audience on that occasion, wanted the work for himself and immediately asked the composer for an alternative version for violin. Surely not because Oistrakh was right in thinking that the work required the dynamic and expressive scope of the violin to realise its potential, but certainly because of his exceptional powers as a performer, the so-called Second Violin Sonata eclipsed the original version for some time. The Flute Sonata did eventually emerge from the shadow, however, and now the two versions quite happily co-exist, sharing the same piano part and agreeing to differ where flute and violin problems require different solutions.

The opening Andantino is perfectly conceived for the flute. It has two lyrical main themes, one of them faintly nostalgic at first in D major, the other still a little wistful in dotted rhythms in A major, and both so much at ease on their introduction by the flute that it is difficult to imagine them on any other instrument. They are developed not so much by varying their melodic outlines as by applying to them the strangely alien trumpet-and drum motif introduced by the flute just after the exposition repeat. The recapitulation purges them of their anxiety and ends the movement calmly in D major but, after the piano’s last-minute diversion towards B flat minor, only just.

Although the A-minor second movement is identified as a scherzo only in the Violin Sonata, it is a characteristic example of that particular kind in both versions, conforming to a regular ternary pattern with a languorously but capriciously exotic middle section and brilliant outer sections betraying just a fleeting hint of a waltz here and there. The short Andante, an expressive romance in F major, seems to conform to a regular ternary pattern too – but only until a point about two thirds of the way through, where the flute continues the elaborate triplet figuration of the middle section and adds its as a counterpoint to the main theme enchantingly recalled by the piano in entirely the wrong key.

If any of the four movements might be thought to require the resources of the violin it is the last. Yet another ternary construction, it is not only more complex in design but also more dramatic than any of the others. The first section is based on an explosive theme in D major that alternates with a passage that is slower and heavier but, with its convulsive flute arpeggios, no less eventful. The extended F major middle section relapses into introspection at first and then gradually becomes more active as the harmonies return towards D major. It is at the end of this recovery process and a full-scale recapitulation, that the structural situation calls for a coda with everything the flute can give it in terms of volume and celebratory colour.