Written during the 1930's, when much of the significant solo trumpet music was composed, the musical content of Sonatine F-major is, in a general context, somewhat akin to the works of Karl Pilss (1935) and Paul Hindemith (1939). Takata's work, however, written when he was only 16 years old, is different from these other works in that it exhibits the added strong influence of French Impressionism together with his gifted Japanese sensitivities.
In the first movement, there is an exposition section which presents two graceful motives that are dynamically developed with distinctive rhythms that are ultimately resolved in a well-defined tutti. In the second movement, the music begins with an elegiac fanfare followed by a march heard over a solemn piano accompaniment. The fanfare then returns to bring the march to an end with a distinctive Debussy-like piano chord. The music then proceeds attacca to the third movement, which features some very impressive French sounds and a feel of syncopation that seems rooted in the jazz idiom of the time.
As the last pupil of Professor Fujio Nakayama, it is my great pleasure and honor to introduce this work. -Osamu Kumashiro