As the final piece on the program, Poulenc’s sonata is one of his final completed works before his death in January 1963, commissioned by Benny Goodman and dedicated to the memory of his friend and fellow composer Arthur Honegger. This sonata is a masterpiece of French-style clarinet composition, offering emotional depth, haunting lyricism, elegant charm, bittersweet melancholy and sudden, capricious wit.