Mike Cornick became an enthusiastic jazz pianist following the formal piano lessons of his childhood and went on to become a prize winning student of composition at Trinity College of Music in London. He has taught music at all levels from primary to adult and is best known for his jazz piano publications, many of which have been selected for piano exams world wide. Writing for woodwind is something of a rarity for him and Mike Cornick's Sonata for clarinet and piano may also be unusual in not having even a suggestion of jazz in any of its three movements. The first (Allegretto) starts with a seven bar lyrical, slightly whimsical tune which is repeated throughout the movement with playful passages alternating with it. The mysterious feel of the second movement is immediately established by the sinister falling motif in the left hand of the piano, conjuring up images of Moorish Spain and shadowy figures behind lattice screens. The third movement (Allegro) is energetic and its 'hallmark' is a two bar phrase of rising unequal interval staccato leaps, alternating first with a 'dolce' passage and then an 'Andante liberamente'. There is a cadenza-like passage marked 'Adagio - freely' before a return to 'Tempo primo' where the opening two bar phrase is 'recapped' and an 'accelerando' leads into 'Allegro con brio' and the end.