Kuss, M :: Sonata

Sonata para Flauta y Piano (Sonata for Flute and Piano), by Malena Kuss. In three movements: Allegro ma non troppo presto, Cantilena (Andante con malinconia), and Allegro vigoroso. From the composer: 'The Sonata for Flute and Piano (1960), an unabashed exploration of post-tonal sonorities that betrays a youthful disregard for instrumental difficulty, marked the end of six years of private composition lessons with Ginastera, who taught me more musicology in his compositions classes than any of my [future] famous teachers, among them Schoenberg’s pupil Leonard Stein, theorist and composer George Perle, and the polymath Robert Stevenson. For a promising young pianist who eventually studied with Gyorgy Sandor and Rosina Lhévinne, Ginastera approached the teaching of composition as a history course, demanding that students hone their skills by writing in chronologically unfolding styles. ... The extraordinary experience of studying composition as part of training as a performer was interrupted in 1960 when Gyorgy Sandor offered me a full scholarship to study piano with him at SMU. The piece is dedicated to Don Bailey, a brilliant flutist and dear friend who survived my music history courses at UNT with stoic perseverance.' Performance edition by Don Bailey and Yujung Um.