Sonatina, Op. 27 - Clarinet Unaccompanied

Miklos Rozsa (1907-1995) was part of the seemingly numberless stream of European musicians resettling in the United States during the 1930s and 40s, also one of the numberless composers with serious training who wrote movie music to make a living.  He won three Academy Awards and was nominated sixteen times for Best Original Score.

Rozsa said in a radio interview that he had grown up hearing unaccompanied folk music in Hungary and that this experience had something to do with his production of several unaccompanied solos for instruments.  For the clarinet he composed the Sonatina in 1957 and the Sonata in 1986, both unaccompanied.  One would have to presume that the Sonatina is for clarinet in B-flat, but no indication is given.

The Sonatina is in two movements.  The first is a theme with seven variations.  The second is a scherzo-like movement that gets faster and faster.  The work is tonal and there are no special effects, extremes of range, or impossible tounguing, but there are notes galore.