Sonata, Op. 41 - 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 Sonata is for clarinet in B-flat, but no indication is given. 

During the early 1950s, Rozsa started spending summers in Santa Margherita Ligure, a town in northwestern Italy, not far from Genoa.  One of his neighbors was a Marchesa, named Madeda Mina di Sospiro, hence the dedication on the first page of the Sonata.  The English equivalent of the title Marchesa (Marchese for men) is Marchioness (Marquis or Marchess for men), a hereditary title between Earl and Duke.