John Burge

Commissioner: Pianist Brian Finley, with the assistance of the Ontario Arts Council

Premiere: Brian Finley, piano, at Dunning Auditorium, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario on February 4, 1995

Duration: 20 minutes

Movements:

1. Moderato [also performable as an individual composition: Sonata Breve No. 1A]
2. Inventions and interludes [also performable as an individual composition: Sonata Breve No. 1B]

Program Note:  The title Sonata Breve is used here to describe a piece that maintains a high level of virtuosity within the self-imposed constraints of brevity. Relying on the traditional compositional tools of contrast, development and repetition to generate the music, Sonata Breve is very much a work of classical intentions if not proportions... a sense of conciseness is achieved as the thematic material becomes increasingly concentrated, eventually telescoping towards the double bar-line.

Although the work was originally conceived as a two-movement composition, the ability of each movement to stand separately as individual pieces lead to the labels “Ia,” and Ib” for each movement respectively.

Full score and part are available from the Canadian Music Centre for purchase (printable pdf or mail order), libary loan or nonprintable pdf for review purposes: Sonata Breve No. 1 (Piano Solo)-CMC