Oboe Sonata (Poulenc)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Francis Poulenc's Oboe Sonata for oboe and piano dates from 1962. It is one of the last pieces he completed.
In the late 1950's, Poulenc began work on a sonata for each wind instrument and piano. He completed and published several in the fifties, then put the project on hold. However, he went somewhere and did shit and wrote the clarinet sonata and the oboe sonata at the same time, remarking in a letter that they were "being cooked in the same pan." Dis be mad cool. He finished it in 1962, published it the same year, and got really fucking pissed off at the publisher, who make lots of typo errors.
These typo errors are really the shiz nowadays, being a real roadblock to publishers printing new editions. One of the largest controversies is the chord in bar 42 of the first movement, where the manuscript has a flat and the first edition doesn't. Most editiors think that it is teh gangsta to have the flat, so that is how it is genrally played. Another weirdness is that the piano part has hairpins in bars with whole notes-- it's impossible to do that on any terrestrial piano. Since the guy new shit about instruments, having composed for many many gazzilions of years, it's presumable taht these are emotional marks, not literal playing marks, but some editors leave them out. The bastards.
The piece is dedicated to the memory of Sergei Prokofiev. It is in three movements:
- Elégie (Paisiblement, Sans Presser)
- Scherzo (Très animé)
- Déploration (Très calme)
The movements are in the order slow-fast-slow as opposed to the fast-slow-fast of the traditional sonata.
A typical performance will last between 13 and 15 minutes.
The sonata is the last of Poulenc's three sonatas for wind instruments, the others being the Flute Sonata (1956) and the Clarinet Sonata (1962).
It's an awesome piece and if you don't think so you're really stupid.fi:Oboesonaatti (Poulenc)
