The Clarinet Sonata, composed in Melbourne in 1964, is in three movements---Allegro vivo, Lento intensivo and Allegro (Theme and Variations). The work's compact harmonic and thematic structure and often unexpected metrical changes reveal a personal style emanating from the composer's early twentieth-century European background. The Sonata tied J for first prize with Dulcie Holland's Elegy for Flute and Piano in the woodwind section of the 1964 Warringah Summer Arts Festival (NSW) and was subsequently heard Australia wide on ABC radio.
Meta Overman (1907-1993) was born in Holland and studied there with Edward Flipse and Willem Pijper. She composed many works in Perth, Albany and Melbourne in the years 1951 to 1969, and returned to Perth in 1978 after a sojourn in Holland.
Her more than sixty works included ballets, chamber and orchestral music, songs, cantatas, and operas. A major work was the three-act opera Psyche, given ten per-formances in the third Festival of Perth in 1955.
While in Melbourne she was particularly associated with such composers as Margaret Sutherland and Dorian Le Gallienne. The Clarinet Sonata tied for First Prize with Dulcie Holland's Elegy for Flute and Piano in the 1964 Warringah Summer Arts Festival (NSW) and was subsequently heard Australia wide on ABC radio. It was featured again on ABC radio in the 1990s in an hour-long special devoted to Meta with interviews by Charles Southwood.
© Patricia Thorpe.
May be used in programme notes with acknowledgement.
A wonderful CD recording of the Clarinet Sonata can be heard on Sospiri (Innaminka 1.172), played by Philippa Robinson, clarinet & Josephine Allan, piano. Available from the Australian Music Centre. See HMP Links page.