Trumpet Sonata

Description

All three movements of this sonata are concerned metaphorically with overcoming adversity; or in registral terms, with rising from the depths (more directly at some times than others). This concept is referenced in the subtitle of the first movement, from Psalm 130: ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord…’ A slowly rising figure, emerging from the lowest register of the trumpet and the bottom of the piano, progresses throughout the movement, transforming itself as it rises through the registers to triumphant, glittering heights. This is interrupted and alternated with dancelike, scherzando material, which features a rigorously mechanistic process of contraction and expansion in the chords of the piano part. The slow movement has elements of polystylism, with echoes of modern jazz and of the ballroom in the presentation (by trumpet and piano alternately) of the melancholy main theme, The climactic rise begins around two-thirds of the way through (from bar 44), taking the trumpet from the bottom to the top of it’s range within a dozen bars, In the final chaconne the process of ascent is heard transparently in the piano part: a six-bar ground bass rises inexorably through six octaves of the keyboard, against which the trumpet presents increasingly elaborate counterpoint.