Niels Viggo Bentzon was a prodigiously productive composer and a cultural giant of 20th century Denmark. While best known for his Tempered Clavier works he wrote widely for Orchestra and chamber ensembles and at different times of his career embraced neoclassic atonal and twelve-tone palettes. In the Trumpet Sonata as in some of his other sonatas he explores the duality of the two instruments. In this case he enters more deeply into atonal harmonies without ever quite leaving diatonism entirely behind. The Trumpet Sonata is in classic three-movement form.
