Sonatine in F

Shinichi Takata’s Sonatine in F major is the earliest piece of original trumpet music ever written by a Japanese composer.

In the first movement, there is an exposition section which presents two graceful motives that are dynamically developed with distinctive rhythms that are ultimately resolved in a well-defined tutti. In the second movement, the music begins with an elegiac fanfare followed by a march heard over a solemn piano accompaniment. The fanfare then returns to bring the march to an end with a distinctive Debussy-like piano chord. The music then proceeds attacca to the third movement, which features some very impressive French sounds and a feel of syncopation that seems rooted in the jazz idiom of the time.