Daryl Runswick's Flute Sonata (2003, dedicated to Wissam Boustany) is one of his 'dot music' pieces, where the players are provided in the score with note-heads only (see below); no stems appear, neither do any rests or barlines. Apart from the pitches and approximate rhythms, everything is to be improvised: note lengths, dynamics, phrasing, timbre: every other aspect of the piece's realisation.
The first thing you notice about this music is that it is canonical: the two players play the same material in
canon at longer or shorter intervals.
Less obvious is that it is modal (written
in modes rather than keys) – this is
what gives the Sonata its particular flavour. It is cast in a single movement in six sections, all containing roughly
the same music, played faster or
slower. The shortest section lasts
just 30 seconds, the longest (the final one) almost four minutes. This produces a music whose repetitions tend, not so much toward a traditional sonata-development, more toward variation form.
