English composer Malcolm Arnold wrote this compact sonatina in 1951 and it has since become one of his most popular instrumental works. As always with Arnold, it is impeccably crafted: the first movement, with it's wide leaps, the occasional incursion of a six-eight bar into the prevailing four-four, and the lightest of jazzy touches, lives up to its marking of Allegro con brio; while the second demonstates Arnold's love at this period of a gentle cantabile style where no shadows yet lurk. The finale is a wild dance in three-four time marked Furioso, and it is a distant cousin of the Czech Furiant. With its vigorous rhythms and cascading semiquavers, it has something of the open-air quality of Dvorak at his most buccolic - not a frequent influence on Malcolm Arnold, but a highly appropriate one in this charming (and challenging) little work. This version for clarinet solo with wind band has been arranged by saxophone player Alex Steurs.