The clarinet sonata is one of three that Poulenc wrote for solo woodwind and piano, part of a planned set that he did not live to complete. A sonata for flute was composed in 1956, while one for oboe was completed a few weeks after the one for clarinet. Flute Sonata, FP 164 (Poulenc, Francis) This work is likely not in the public domain in the US (due to first publication with the required notice after 1925, plus renewal or 'restoration' under the GATT/TRIPS amendments), nor in the EU and those countries where the copyright term is. Francis Poulenc ( 1899-1963 ) is a composer and a French pianist, an author of about two hundred melodies or songs, accompanied for the greater part in the piano or by an orchestra. First performance on 18 June of the Sonata for Flute and Piano, at the Strasbourg Festival, by Jean-Pierre Rampal accompanied by Poulenc himself. The flute sonata was written in the winter of 1956-57 on commission from the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation at the U.S. Library of Congress. It was first performed at the Scarborough Festival in June 1957, by flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal and Poulenc, and they played it frequently until Poulenc’s death six years later.

Francis Poulenc Sonata For Flute And Piano Imslp
Francis Poulenc Flute Sonata
Francis Poulenc Sonata For Flute And Piano
Francis Poulenc Flute Sonata Description
Francis Poulenc Flute Sonata Sheet Music

Poulenc’s Sonata of 1957 is dedicated to the memory of that champion of twentieth-century chamber music, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge. The Sonata’s own cause was promoted by the Chesterian magazine (Spring 1958) which declared: ‘For Francis Poulenc, a medium such as Flute and Piano is ideal for expressing himself in his inimitable style. All flautists will wish to include it in their repertoire.’ For Poulenc himself, the strongest spiritual influence was that of his dear friend Raymonde Linossier; having completed his Sonata, he concluded: ‘It is Poulenc but very Raymonde, as with every composition for winds.’ Flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal gave the first public performance at the Strasbourg Festival on 18 June 1957, with the composer at the piano.

The restless ‘Allegretto malincolico’ focuses on a descending chromatic idea, preceded by an arpeggiated flourish, with Poulenc enjoying major and minor inflections. Frequent trills and demisemiquaver tonguing attest to the flautist’s technique. The Classical legacy is evident in the piano’s Alberti-bass figurations, and the debt to the Baroque in the flute’s dotted rhythms within the slower middle section. A quiet, song-like ‘Cantilena’ explores the flute’s vocal qualities with an arching melodic contour: ‘a great rainbow of melody’. (Some have also noted connections with Poulenc’s contemporary opera, Dialogues des Carmélites.) Extensive use of smooth scalic figures is contrasted by more dotted rhythmic material in the central portion. The ‘Presto giocoso’ has a light-hearted, rondo-like character, again with a strong rhythmic identity; it enjoys imitative textures and cyclical elements, with an arpeggiated figure and later the dotted idea (‘mélancolique’) from the first movement, together with a thematic hint of the second (reaching up to a top C). A confident, extrovert reprise of the opening concludes, ‘strictly in time without any slowing down’

The Sonate pour flûte et piano (Flute Sonata), FP 164, by Francis Poulenc, is a three-movement work for flute and piano, written in 1957.

The sonata was commissioned by the American Library of Congress and is dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American patron of chamber music. Poulenc preferred composing for woodwinds above strings. He premiered the piece with the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal in June 1957 at the Strasbourg Music Festival. The work was an immediate success, and was quickly taken up in the US, Britain and elsewhere and has been recorded many times. Critics have noted Poulenc's characteristic 'trademark bittersweet grace, wit, irony and sentiment' in the piece. In 1976, thirteen years after Poulenc's death, the composer Lennox Berkeley made a well-regarded orchestrated version of the work that has also been recorded.

The flute sonata became one of Poulenc's best-known works and is a prominent feature in 20th-century flute repertoire. It has a claim to be the most played of any work for flute and piano.

Background and first performance[edit]

Poulenc began to think of writing a flute sonata in 1952, but he was occupied with his Sonata for Two Pianos and then his opera, Dialogues des Carmélites.^[1] In April 1956, when he was still working on the opera, he was approached by Harold Spivacke of the American Library of Congress with a request to write a piece for two pianos or alternatively a chamber piece for up to six instruments.^[2] Poulenc was too busy to accept, but Spivacke persisted. Poulenc told him, 'Much more at home with wind instruments than strings, I admit I am tempted by this combination', as he had always preferred winds – with their similarities to the human voice – to stringed instruments.^{[n 1]} In August he agreed to go ahead.^[4] The sonata was commissioned in memory of a musical benefactor, Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, to whom Poulenc dedicated the work.^[1]

Poulenc spent the winter of 1956–57 in Cannes, where he composed the sonata between December and March.^[5] When he had completed the first two of the three movements, he wrote to his friend Pierre Bernac:

In working on this Flute Sonata I have the feeling of going back a long way, but with a more settled technique. It's a sonata of Debussyan dimensions. It's the French sense of balance [la mesure française]. Finding the form for your language is the most difficult thing. It's what Webern has in the highest degree … and what Boulez has not yet found.^[6]

On 18 June 1957, the public premiere was given at the Strasbourg Music Festival by the flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal, for whom it had been written, with the composer at the piano.^[7]^{[n 2]}Le Figaro said of the work, 'The music burst forth from the heart, without formality, and 'sang', in every sense'. Another critic stated that the sonata was 'the best of Poulenc, and even a little better'.^[8]

Music[edit]

Francis Poulenc Sonata For Flute And Piano Imslp

The sonata is in three movements, taking a total of 12 minutes in performance.^[9] The score was published in France and Britain shortly after the premiere. In 1994 a new edition by Carl B. Schmidt and Patricia Harper was issued, correcting discrepancies and errors in the earlier published score.^[8] The musicologist Malcolm MacDonald writes of the sonata:

The work is infused with Poulenc’s trademark bittersweet grace, wit, irony and sentiment, which are manifested in different ways in each of its three movements. The first … makes clear the composer’s elegiac intentions; the second is a haunting cantilena for the flute. Very fast and very tricky for the players, the skittish and vivacious … finale brings the work to a close in cheerful and sardonic style.^[5]

Allegretto malinconico[edit]

The movement starts in ²
₄ (♩= 82) with an opening four-bar phrase with a descending theme, beginning with a broken triad of demisemiquavers around high E and declining to the G above middle C. The piano's right-hand part interweaves arpeggiatedsemiquavers over a pedal in the left hand.^[10] This is followed by an upward scale by both flute and piano leading to a contrasting theme, also descending.^[11] MacDonald comments that the opening 'makes clear the composer’s elegiac intentions', and other analysts write of the 'poignancy' of the principal theme, despite the seemingly vivacious tempo.^[1]^[5]^[12] A counter-theme in F major gives the flute upwardly-leaping arpeggios, before the opening theme returns in A minor. Wilfrid Mellers comments that the reappearance of the first theme in an unexpected key makes it clear that Poulenc is not following sonata form but

Francis Poulenc Flute Sonata