SONATINA

The twelve year old Malcolm Arnold was inspired to learn the trumpet by hearing Louis Armstrong in Bournemouth and went on to be principal trumpet of the London Philharmonic Orchestra while still in his twenties. In 1948 he gave up professional playing to become a full time composer who was to write nine symphonies, numerous concertos and concert works, chamber and choral music and a hundred film scores; but in 1948 Arnold was working at a more intimate scale and wrote the first of a trio of sonatinas dedicated to his flautist friend Richard Adeney. This was followed, in 1951, by a clarinet sonatina which was probably intended for Frederick 'Jack' Thurston and the Oboe Sonatina, thought to have been inspired by the playing of the internationally renowned soloist Leon Goossens, in the same year.

'Sonatina' or 'little sonata' sometimes suggests simplicity and insignificance but not with this piece which has been described as a full-blooded sonata in miniature. It is well marked with 'Arnoldian fingerprints' - tonally unsettled with sudden and unprepared changes of mood and tempo which are almost contradictory, sometimes lyrical but with sinister undertones and flashes of humour. As one reviewer simply put it "It is full of good things."

• II Andante con moto
• III Vivace

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