First Sonatina for winds

Richard Strauss' First Wind Sonatina from 1943 bears the telling subtitle "From the Workshop of an Invalid" and reflects the situation of the nearly eighty-year-old composer, who increasingly turned to chamber music in his later years. The work demonstrates Strauss' masterful command of wind writing and his ability to achieve rich sonic effects even with reduced forces.

The sonatina belongs to that group of late works in which Strauss turns away from the monumental dimensions of his great operas and tone poems to find a more intimate, concentrated means of expression. The musical language combines late Romantic harmony with neoclassical elements and displays a remarkable clarity of voice leading. Strauss exploits the characteristic tone colors of the individual wind instruments with virtuosity, creating a warm, chamber music character.

As one of the significant German wind works of the 20th century, the sonatina stands in the tradition of Austrian-German Harmoniemusik, yet renews this tradition through Strauss' individual harmonic language and his decades of experience in orchestration.