Armando Bayolo
Sonata
for soprano saxophone (or oboe) and piano
Armando Bayolo Sonata
for
soprano saxophone (or oboe) and piano
I. Escape Velocity ........................................................................................1.
II. ...her perfume lingers in the evening air... ............................................25.
III. The Speedster’s Lullaby ........................................................................35.
IV. Dirge .....................................................................................................50.
Commissioned by the Dan Graser and Brian Hsu.
Written in July-August, 2023, in Florissant, Missouri
Duration: approx. 18-20 minutes
Program Note
I don’t use formal titles very often, and haven’t since my student days. But there is an abstraction to a piece called “Sonata” that is strangely liberating. The present sonata is in four movements each, ironically, with a poetic title and each based on the melody introduced at the very beginning of the piece.
“Escape Velocity” refers to the speed necessary for an object to achieve in order to escape Earth gravity and reach orbit. The saxophone (or oboe) and piano play the same material but with different attacks, gradually becoming more independent. In the same process of gaining textural independence, the tempo becomes faster and the line rises to its highest point by the end of the movement.
”...her perfume lingers in the evening air...” is a very simple romance in something like a rounded binary form (albeit one grossly expanded). One of the things I’ve always loved about my partner, Tammy, is how her perfume lingers after she’s left a room. It’s a lovely little detail of a lovely person and this is a humble love song for her.
“The Speedster’s Lullaby” isn’t really a lullaby. It also isn’t terribly fast on the page, but often sounds much faster than it looks. The movement plays with divisions of the beat in an unchanging meter and reflects much of the material of the first movement back onto itself.
The final movement, a “Dirge,” is a brief and dark memorial to the pianist and administrator, Adrian Daly, an old classmate at Eastman. Adrian died unexpectedly while I was working on this piece. His life touched myriad others in varied ways and his loss is deeply felt by all who knew him, however casually. I wanted to acknowledge him, however humbly, in this piece.
The soprano saxophone Sonata was commissioned by Dan Graser and Brian Hsu. It was written in the summer of 2023 in Florissant, Missouri.
for Dan Graser and Brian Hsu
Sonata
for soprano saxophone (or oboe) and piano
Brashlylyrcial,resonant(
=104)
sempre molto legato!
molto martellato!
Piano
*Let the pedal ring throughout but clear it occasionally. The effect should be of the saxophone picking up the piano's resonance.
ArmandoBayolo