by Erik Chisholm
(Scottish Programme)
Constant Lambert's Piano Sonata was written during the years 1928-9. It therefore comes between The Rio Grande and the Piano Concerto. The music of this sonata is more in the style of the latter work ; that is to say, it is more serious in outlook and harsher in idiom than The Rio Grande. The music is full of rhythmic diversity and shows an extraordinarily keen invention. Alan Frank pointed out in a recent article that although this work abounds in syncopated and cross rhythms, ' it is wrong to relate them to jazz ', because it has ' neither the inflexibility of Charing Cross jazz-rhythms nor the rubato and unnotatable features which reside, believe it or not, in authentic " swing " music '.
The first movement in the main follows the lines of classical sonata form. The slow movement, which is a Nocturne, consists of several short sections: first a Blues, then a quick syncopated Interlude, followed by a rather gloomy Habanera, which in its turn is followed by a second Interlude in the same style as the first, finally a section which is a combination of the Blues and Habanera. The last movement is toccata-like in style and in the middle there is an elaborate fugato.