Saint-Saëns - Sonata For Clarinet In E-flat Major, Opus 167

Camille Saint-Saëns was born in 1835 and during his life of 86 years (he died in 1921) he saw many changes in the world. He was a man of brilliant intellect, not only for music, but for the other arts and sciences as well. But music held a special place in his mind and heart, and with the coming of what was in his later years called 'modern music', he became a staunch defender of the classic forms and practices of music that were developed by Liszt and Wagner.

He lived so long that he became a living classic, and he suffered the derision of the younger generation of composers at the turn of the 20th century. He became a musical reactionary, and was publically vocal about his bitterness concerning young composers. He blasted Debussy's music and actively took part in  blocking Debussy's admission into the Institut de France:

We must at all costs bar the door of the Institut against a man capable of such atrocities; they should be put next to the cubist picture.

He also spewed venom in general at any composer of the modern school, and wrote in his book Musical Memories:

There is no longer any question of adding to the old rules new principles which are the natural expression of time and experience, but simply of casting aside all rules and every restraint. "Everyone ought to make his own rules. Music is free and unlimited in its liberty of expression. There are no perfect chords, dissonant chords or false chords. All aggregations of notes are legitimate." That is called, and they believe it, the development of taste.The man with a “developed taste” is not the one who knows how to get new and unexpected results by passing from one key to another, as the great Richard [Wagner] did in Die Meistersinger, but rather the man who abandons all keys and piles up dissonances which he neither introduces nor concludes and who, as a result, grunts his way through music as a pig through a flower garden.

Despite all of that, he was also revered for his artistry and contributions to French musical life. He maintained his piano technique all through his life and impressed members of the audience at a concert in 1921 where he displayed the precision and grace at the piano that he had cultivated many years before.

Saint-Saëns composed some forty works for various chamber ensembles, and during his last year of life he began a series of new compositions for solo wind instruments and piano. His original plan called for sonatas for flute, oboe, clarinet, cor anglais, and bassoon. He lived long enough to complete three of them; for bassoon, oboe , and clarinet. The sonata for clarinet and piano is cast in 4 short movements:

I. Allegretto - The chamber repertoire for clarinet is limited, and it is the same for the other instruments Saint-Saëns wrote for. He may have gotten the idea for the sonata series from a series of sonata planned by Debussy in 1915-1917. Debussy also completed but three of his sonatas (for cello, violin, and combination of flute/violin/harp. Both composers also took a look backwards to their earlier styles as well as adding some more modern elements to the sonatas. The first movement of this sonata begins with a gently rippling piano accompaniment and a quiet song for the clarinet. The movement is not in sonata form, nor are the other three, as Saint-Saëns uses the earlier forms of the Baroque suite. It is in a type of ternary form, although there is some variation along the way.  The mood is one of elegant ease as the opening material returns and closes out the first movement.

II. Allegro animato -  A gentle scherzo, this retains the elegant feeling of theo pening movement and is also in ternary form. The short middle section contains leaps of a twelfth before the opening material returns.

III. Lento - A very slow and lugubrious section in E-flat minor begins the movement as the piano matches the depth of the low notes of the clarinet. The lowest notes of the clarinet, called the chalumeau register, are noted for their distinctive sound. The volume rises until the clarinet goes silent as tghe piano plays rolled chords. After a short pause, the second half of the movement has both instruments playing higher notes at a softer dynamic until the piano arpeggiates until the beginning of the final movement that is played without a break.

IV. Molto allegro - Allegretto -  The most virtuosic movement of the sonata, the clarinet displays its agility with rapid runs. The music continues until a soft transition returns to an unchanged repeat of the opening of the sonata.