Ru
EnO. Gudozhnikova
Genre and stylistic features of Cello Sonata by F. Poulenc
This article is devoted to F. Poulenc’s Sonata for Cello and Piano, a widely performed example of contemporary chamber repertoire that has only occasionally attracted the attention of scholars. The study examines the role and significance of this work in the evolution of the sonata genre and provides a detailed characterization of its structural parameters, dramaturgy, and musical language. Particular attention is given to textural features and the timbral interaction between the instruments. The distinctive interpretation of sonata principles presented in the cycle is considered from the perspective of an individual synthesis of neoclassical genre traits, “dialogic” connections with the academic musical culture of the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries – particularly the French tradition – and artistic tendencies that anticipate the aesthetics of the postmodern era. The author identifies multiple stylistic sources of Poulenc’s Cello Sonata and proposes a probable genre prototype – C. Debussy’s Sonata, in which a unique synthesis of late Romantic, impressionist, and neoclassical tendencies is manifested. Furthermore, Poulenc’s chamber opus reveals notable parallels with the French Baroque sonata, including the structural organization of the “duet” cycle, the predominance of a playful element, and a “kaleidoscopic” principle of presenting contrasting musical themes. The use of ternary reprise forms in the absence of sonata allegros indicates a refraction of the traditions of the French “cyclic sonata” (a term proposed by V. d’Indy). Parallels with the classical model of the genre are manifested in the clear intonational profile of the multi-element thematic material, the transparency of texture, and the variation of characteristic passage-arpeggiated “formulas”. The interaction of the instrumental parts is characterized by a sonic unity alongside deliberate timbral contrast and differentiation of musical themes. Invariant features of sonata form are represented through contrasting juxtapositions of diverse “movement-images”, textural designs, and timbres. Within this interpretative framework, the established genre semantics of the sonata – originally associated with the predominance of subjectivity and addressing the “microcosm” of human reflection and emotion – undergo a process of objectification.
Key words
F. Poulenc, chamber ensemble music, Sonata for Cello and Piano, author’s interpretation of the genre, stylistic dialogues.
For citation
Gudozhnikova O. Genre and stylistic features of Cello Sonata by F. Poulenc. In: South-Russian Musical Anthology. 2026. No. 1. Pp. 74–81.
