Arthur Honegger Sonatina for clarinet and piano, a magnificent work, a century after its premiere

VIDEO

VIDEO

When I was very young, I was introduced to Arthur Honegger Sonatina for clarinet and piano on a recording by clarinetist Stanley Drucker, and it always appealed to me. Two years ago, I decided to study it for recording, a project I was finally able to complete in July 2021, along with the track recorded by pianist Mohamed Shams. Above is the video of this recording, which I enjoyed so much.

Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) was a prolific composer of Swiss parents who lived most of his life in Paris. He is associated with the modern French music movement of the first half of the 20th century. After World War I, he joined The Six, a group of young composers that also included Georges Auric, Germaine Tailleferre, Francis Poulenc, Darius Milhaud, and Louis Durey.

Arthur Honegger in 1928

His Sonatina for clarinet in A and piano, written between 1921 and 1922, was dedicated to the famous impresario and amateur clarinetist Werner Reinhart and premiered by Louis Cahuzac, one of the fathers of the French clarinet school, on June 5, 1923, in Paris. This means that this year, 2023, marks 100 years since its first performance! Honegger composed it when he was 30 years old, a year after Camille Saint-Säens composed his beautiful Sonata at the age of 85.

Arthur Honegger's Sonatina for clarinet and piano is written for clarinet in A, and its dark and somber first movement clearly reflects the timbre of this instrument. Its three movements, each very short, are Modéré, Lent et soutenu and Vif et rhythmique, but the composer does not indicate any specific metronome tempo in the score. La duración total de la obra es de poco más de seis minutos.

First page of the Arthur Honegger Sonatina for clarinet and piano

The first movement (Modéré) is a charming miniature of just 70 bars and in triple A-B-A form. A rhythmic pattern of three sixteenth notes followed by a long note serves as the main motif in the exposition. Both instruments begin in the lower register, with a languid melody that flows from one side to the other. Honegger achieves a clean balance between the two instruments, with the clarinet occasionally accompanying the piano. The middle section, a rhythmic and nervous interlude, begins with the piano's theme and continues as a three-part fugato. The restatement is similar to the bars at the beginning of the movement, but the fugato theme appears in the piano, with increased values ​​twice as slow. The second movement (Lent et soutenu), slow and expressive, lasts 33 bars and is in A-B binary form. The piano, which primarily accompanies this movement, is also quite chromatic, moving through twelve semitones in the first few bars. The essence of this movement is generated by the colors of the sound, mysterious and sometimes strident, rather than by its rhythm.

The third and final movement (Vif et rhythmique) is the liveliest of the three, and is also very brief, just 37 bars long, in ternary form. It begins with the piano playing a syncopated ostinato. The clarinet attacks with a rhythmic pattern shifted by a sixteenth note, with ascending glissandos. The combination of the piano ostinato and the eccentric rhythms and glissandos of the clarinet gives the impression of primitive jazz music.

Despite its brevity, it is a sonically and harmonically complex work, presenting diverse textures; Honegger develops many compositional techniques throughout. Furthermore, it is written so that the clarinet and piano integrate as if they were a single instrument. Certainly, the piano offers more than mere accompaniment, and in the contrapuntal sections, it generally initiates the material. Although Honegger has explored atonality in some of his works, this Sonatina for Clarinet and Piano in particular is quite tonal throughout. Of the three movements, the second is much more chromatic than the others. The work possesses a rhythmic vitality that is most evident in the first and third movements. Both instruments must play with extreme precision.

Click here to watch the video on YouTube

Source: "A Comparative Study of Selected Clarinet Works by Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc", por Thomas D. Stirzaker, 1988.