The Arnold Bax Sonata for clarinet and piano (composed June 1934) is one of those odd musical items that comes along once or twice a century that, being accidentally misnamed in a major reference, somehow never manages to shake off the shackles of its happenstance misnomer. You see, despite being called "Sonata in B flat major" in catalogs and lists and databases around the world, it is in fact a work in D major. (The mistake is easy enough to trace: the work is a sonata for B flat clarinet and piano, and the "B flat"—which of course describes the transposition of the clarinet part, not the key of the piece—simply got moved over a few syllables.) Beyond this musicological speed bump, the sonata has had an ordinary life; it is neither very famous nor hopelessly obscure. The occasion of its first performance on June 17, 1935, at a London Contemporary Music Centre concert was, however, one that at least two people remembered very well for the rest of their lives: first, Bax, because the sonata was played twice, and second, composer Lennox Berkeley, whose own piece was supposed to get played in the concert but, having been lost in the mail, was replaced by a second go at the Bax sonata.

The Clarinet Sonata is in two movements, which together last something under 15 minutes; it is clearly the work of a middle-aged composer who, perhaps having lost some of the edge that drove his music to fame early on in his career, can boast of having replaced that edge with a sure, solid, beautifully balanced lyric technique.

The first movement is Molto moderato. Clarinet and piano begin together—fitting, as their activities are very equal in importance throughout the sonata. In fact, considering that the clarinet is a woodwind and its player needs air to survive, there are relatively few spots at which the piano is heard alone—a measure here, a measure there. The movement is in the usual two-theme sonata shape; both tunes are smooth and supple, a far cry indeed from the days of old when major contrast between first and second themes was a must.

Perhaps because of that very smoothness, the fact that the first movement is really quite tricky to perform may well go unnoticed by most listeners; not so of the difficulties of the second movement, Vivace. Sixteenth notes are flung around from clarinet to piano in vintage moto perpetuo style, foiled only by a sharp-pointed repeated dotted figure. But, quite contrary to expectation, Bax does not throw in an explosive virtuosic close; instead, he lets things slow down and provides a brief, dolcissimo reprise of the first movement's downward-floating main theme at the very end.

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