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Programme Notes
The Sonata for Cello and Piano was commissioned by Raphael Wallfisch and John York and premiered by them in the Wigmore Hall in 2005. Of its inspiration the composer writes: “In a somewhat fevered state—I was not sleeping well at the time—I kept hearing in my mind a repeating, toccata-like piano figure with some open-spaced pizzicato cello chords, all within an alternating set of 7/8-4/4-3/8 metres. Sitting at the piano the next morning, I was struck that I remembered the pitches precisely and that, in the cold light of day, the idea was as vivid and effective as I’d imagined.” The dreamt phrase became the starting-point for the last movement’s virtuosic flurries as the sonata was unusually written in reverse order. The opening preludising movement consequently took on a fantasia-like shape, sewing seeds of later growth—hence its occasional toccata figures, arabesques, and a persistent quintuplet figuration. Indeed, cascades of notes from the piano feature again (as in the Piano Trio) beneath a plaintive cello melody. The movement’s capaciousness and extended harmonies invite comparisons with Debussy, although the occasional Baroque affectations bear out Fribbins’s polyliterate approach.
The pastoral melody of the Aria, marked Larghetto, does not dictate but does reappear transformed in the piano with a ‘commentary’ from the cello. Further repetitions are more allusive still, until, resignedly, it is left unfinished—and tied across to the final movement. Given its aforesaid inspiration, the multi-sectioned Toccata is an atypical finale: after the Drammatico opening comes a more tonal Tranquillo interlude that reprises the cascading piano. A further Liberamente passage heralds the movement’s centrepiece, Recitativo, an incongruous, written-out cadenza that makes references to its preceding movements. A more romantic section interjects (Largamente tempestuoso), seemingly as a resolution, only for a quasi-parodic passage to follow: roles are reversed as the cello voices the piano’s cascading notes in a deliberately more fragile manner, clearing a path for the toccata’s vehement return.
© Christopher Dromey 2009
The pastoral melody of the Aria, marked Larghetto, does not dictate but does reappear transformed in the piano with a ‘commentary’ from the cello. Further repetitions are more allusive still, until, resignedly, it is left unfinished—and tied across to the final movement. Given its aforesaid inspiration, the multi-sectioned Toccata is an atypical finale: after the Drammatico opening comes a more tonal Tranquillo interlude that reprises the cascading piano. A further Liberamente passage heralds the movement’s centrepiece, Recitativo, an incongruous, written-out cadenza that makes references to its preceding movements. A more romantic section interjects (Largamente tempestuoso), seemingly as a resolution, only for a quasi-parodic passage to follow: roles are reversed as the cello voices the piano’s cascading notes in a deliberately more fragile manner, clearing a path for the toccata’s vehement return.
© Christopher Dromey 2009
Peter Fribbins
Category
Composed
Duration (approx)
Parts
Commission
First performance
Venue
Ensemble
Chamber Music
2004-2005
21 minutes
Cello and piano
Raphael Wallfisch & John York
November 2005
St John – at – Hampstead Church, London, UK
Gemma Rosefield (cello), Gretel Dowdeswell (piano)
