Sonata for Cello and Piano
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Piano
- Composed
- 1957
- Duration
- 17'
- Publisher
- Lauren Keiser Music Publishing
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About this piece
George Walker, the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, wrote this sonata in 1957 as his studies were ending. He had trained at the Curtis Institute, with Samuel Barber for composition and Piatigorsky and Primrose for chamber music, and then with Nadia Boulanger at Fontainebleau. Walker named Debussy, Hindemith and Stravinsky among his heroes, and the sonata's language also draws on spirituals and jazz. Paul Olefsky gave the first public performance in New York in 1964 with Walker at the piano, and Janos Starker took it up in 1976. First published in 1972, it is now issued by Lauren Keiser Music Publishing in a performance edition. Recent recordings, including Laura van der Heijden's on Chandos (2024), have brought it renewed attention.
Technical overview
Three movements, about 17 minutes: a tightly organised, hard-driven Allegro passionato with frequent tempo changes; a lyrical Sostenuto; and a short Allegro that accelerates into a Presto coda. Neoclassical in design, with a tonal language coloured by spirituals, blues and jazz.