Sonata

The artistic production of the Neapolitan composer Mario Pilati (Naples, 1903-1938) has recently been undergoing a reappraisal. Having died at a young age, he never had the opportunity to gain the recognition he deserved, and much of his music has, in fact, fallen into oblivion.

Less well-known than his Sonata in La (Sonata in A major) written a few years later for the same formation, his Sonata per violoncello e pianoforte (Sonata in D major for cello and piano) was composed in 1922 when the composer was nineteen years old, in the ninth year of his compositional studies in the class of Maestro Antonio Savasta.

The Sonata, based on the opening of a piece by Carl Reinecke, is in sonata form, and develops over a single movement. In the piece, which has got clear post-romantic connotations, the expressive vein, singing lines and lyricism that would also distinguish Pilati’s later works can already be heard.