Canfield: Sonata for Trumpet and Piano

Code: JP9505
ISMN: 979-0-3019-0680-4

David DeBoor Canfield wrote his Sonata for Trumpet & Piano in the summer of 2000 as a surprise for the dedicatee, James Klages. The sonata received its premiere on February 18, 2001, by James Klages and pianist Hao Huang at a festival of Canfield's music at the University of Central Oklahoma. But when Canfield heard the work premiered, he realized that it had a number of defects that needed rewriting. He sporadically worked at the revisions, as time permitted between other commissions, until finally producing the final version in June of 2023.

The first movement is declamatory in style, with a piano accompaniment inspired by Canfield's “favorite” piece of music, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, specifically the “Baba-Yaga” movment from that iconic work. The second movement is based on Klages’ favorite hymn, And Can It Be That I Should Gain, which is intoned unchanged (except in rhythm) by the muted trumpet, albeit given a completely new accompaniment that is quite far removed from the harmonies found in hymns. A climax of this movement finds the trumpet unmuted and reverting to the declamatory style of the opening movement, before reiterating the hymn tune in abridged form. The last movement is a tarantella, the theme of which Canfield later borrowed for use in the last movement of his Symphony No. 2, “Israel.” In this movement, the virtuosity level of both instruments is ramped up a notch or two from that required in the first two movements, although the work is quite technically demanding throughout.

Solo part is for trumpet in C.
Approximate duration: 12 minutes

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