Program Notes

Sonata for Horn and Piano is a snapshot of various aspects of my life across its period of composition. Originally started in 2018, this piece was born out of myself finding a way to cope with the loss of my uncle. At its core, this piece is about my depression and going through the grieving process. While not intentional, you can ascribe one of the five stages of grief to each movement. Lamentoso aligns with anger, Ballade aligns with denial, Nocturne aligns with depression, Interlude aligns with bargaining, and Scherzo and Finale aligns with acceptance. As a result of this synchronicity, I have dubbed this piece the "Grief Sonata."

Because this piece was written over a 3-year period, this piece also serves as an archive of how my compositional approach changed over that time period. Elements that would later become more adopted into my core compositional style started within some of these movements. Interlude is based upon a short improvisatory horn call I had once performed. Nocturne takes harmonic elements that I initially explored in Lamentoso and further develops them. Both Lamentoso and Scherzo and Finale explore my relationship with quoting other works. Throughout the fifth movement there are paraphrases and quotations of Paul Dukas’ Villanelle (1905) whereas Nocturne paraphrases and alludes to Chopin's Nocturne, Op. 9, No. 1 (1832). Quotation, and the interplay of how the quoted material fits within my own compositions have become core elements of my compositional style, even quoting some of my own previous works within other movements of this piece.

Sonata for Horn and Piano was not completed in numerical order. The order of completion was as follows; Ballade (2018), Lamentoso (2019), Interlude (2020), Scherzo and Finale (2019-21), and Nocturne (2021).