Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2016-11-20 16:24
Well, I went and looked at the Sachania preface again, and there IS more information. (I say 'again' – I must have seen it before, because I've written 'was Andantino tristamente' in pencil above the second movement in the score.)
Here is the complete first paragraph:
"Poulenc completed the Sonata for Clarinet and Piano at Brive-Noizay late in the summer of 1962. The project had been occupying his thoughts for at least five years. He had drafted the slow movement as early as August 1959, but the demands of the Gloria, then in the final stages of composition, halted further progress. It was under these circumstances that Poulenc noted to R. Douglas Gibson of J. & W. Chester that the slow movement could be published as an independent 'Andantino tristamente', were he never to complete the outer movements. (The 'Andantino' later donated its 'tristamente' label to the first movement, and in the process acquired the title 'Romanza'.) Poulenc's perseverance won through, however, and in a letter dated 18 January 1963 the composer promised Gibson delivery of the the fair copy within eight days. He also requested that the task of engraving the work be entrusted to 'un bon graveur assez musicien pour deviner les notes douteuses'. Twelve days later, Poulenc suddenly died. The notational ambiguities thus remained unresolved and accordingly contaminated the text of the first edition, which was published later that year."
I take issue a bit with the last sentence; you can read what I and others have to say about it, plus scans of Poulenc's corrected MS, in:
http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/read.html?f=1&i=285357&t=285332
Anyhow, the idea that the slow movement was written ten years before, and then "laid forgotten in the hope of being published someday until the commission for the Sonata came along", goes beyond what Sachania writes here – indeed, contradicts it.
Perhaps the graduate student has more.
Tony
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The Clarinet BBoard
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