This work's purpose as a display piece for students in clearly stated by the heading, "Contest Solo - For the National School Music Competition - Festivals," which appears above its title. As Desportes' biographies do not mention any lengthy stay in the United States, it would seem that her Andante and Allegro, as well as Bozza's "Ballade" were sought and perhaps commissioned by the Cincinnati publisher, Andraud, in order to fill a need for original compositions for the bass clarinet suitable for educational contest use. The words, "(Original Version)," again make clear that the work was not a transcription from the repertoire of another instrument. The piece is written in a traditional musical language, which would certainly contribute to its appropriateness for student contest use.

A melody constructed of short, arching phrases in E minor leads through the Andante section into the Allegro, which develops a two-measure long motive, this time arching above and then similarly below a central tone, with varying scalar figuration. The Allegro section has considerable motion in sixteenths, but the short phrase lengths cause this to be in bursts of two or three beats in duration. Staccato eights occur occasionally. Large skips are quite rare. The dynamic range is from pp to ff.

The work, which is notated in the French system, has a range of two octaves and a fifth, from E to b'. Surprisingly little use, however, is made of the chalumeau range. Nor is juxtaposition of contrasting registers exploited. The distribution of range use is as follow:

In addition to imposing a musical limitation, the extensive use of the portion of the instrument's range chosen by the composer creates some technical problems which would hinder all but the most competent students. Repeated crossing back and forth from the upper to lower register is required, and the melody emphasizes a portion of the range prone to intonation problems because of the tendency toward sharpness of the lower fourth of the upper register, which the author has found to be a problem to many students of bass clarinet.