Sonata for Oboe and Piano (2009) Peter Hope (1930 - )
Peter Hope’s Oboe Sonata opens with an elegaic theme that he weaves through the entire composition. He transforms it through increasingly lively dance forms, until it becomes a jitterbug over a boogie-woogie bass. This sonata challenges the performers with intricate rhythms and harmonies, and rewards the audience with a stream of singable, danceable, memorable music.
Hope wrote title and theme music for a great many popular British radio and TV programs, making his music more familiar than his name to the British public. About the year 2000 he returned to writing concert music. He was commissioned in 2009 to write a tribute to the English oboist Lady Evelyn Barbirolli (1911-2008), who had played in the first symphony orchestra concert Peter Hope ever attended. The outcome of this commission was his Sonata for Oboe and Piano.