Flute Sonata, FP 188

Composition History

The composer's only sonata for flute was composed from December 1956 to March of the following year, 1957. Poulenc had already conceived the idea of composing a flute sonata in 1952. However, that year, he was commissioned by La Scala in Milan to compose a new work, and for the next few years, he focused on composing this commissioned work, the opera Dialogues des Carmélites. The plan to compose the Flute Sonata resurfaced in April 1956. At that time, the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation (1864-1953), an American pianist and patron of the arts who had also commissioned works from composers such as Prokofiev, approached Poulenc about providing a chamber music work for a chamber music festival scheduled for the autumn of that year.

The composer, who was preoccupied with the orchestration of Dialogues des Carmélites, initially declined the commission, but the Foundation did not give up and re-negotiated with him. Poulenc finally responded to the Foundation in August 1956, informing them that he would accept the commission on the condition that the work would be dedicated to the memory of Coolidge, the autograph manuscript would be donated to the Library of Congress in Washington, and the premiere would take place not at the chamber music festival in the autumn of 1956, but at the Strasbourg Music Festival scheduled for June 1957. Although the Foundation was presented with a proposal that significantly deviated from their original plan, they agreed to Poulenc's terms, on the condition that the program for the Strasbourg premiere would acknowledge the work as a commission from the Coolidge Foundation, and awaited its completion.

Premiere

Due to these circumstances, the work was scheduled to have its public premiere in Strasbourg on June 18, 1957. However, a few days prior, Poulenc, who had arrived in Strasbourg for the festival, learned that Arthur Rubinstein, who was also visiting the city, was interested in the new Flute Sonata. As Rubinstein had to leave Strasbourg on the 18th, Poulenc urgently summoned the intended premiere performer, flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal, and held a private premiere on the 17th, the day before, in the concert hall with Rubinstein as the sole audience member. The American premiere, performed by Rampal on flute and Robert Veyron-Lacroix on piano, took place on February 14, 1958, and was a great success.

Structure

The work consists of three movements: the first movement, "Allegro malincolico (Lively, melancholic)"; the second movement, "Cantilena"; and the third movement, "Presto giocoso." The first movement, which begins with an arpeggiated motif of a minor triad, was originally marked "Allegretto" in the autograph manuscript but was changed to "Allegro" in the printed score. The virtuosic flute part in the middle section is particularly striking. In the second movement, the piano's repeated chord accompaniment supports the flute's long, sustained melody. In the third movement, while briefly interjecting a slower tempo section, the solo and piano engage in rapid exchanges, maintaining momentum until the very end.