Sonata for piano, first movement

Hello Everyone,

I was gladly surprised to notice that YC has become active again, after a down-period.  This prompted me again to post something.  Here is the first movement of a sonata for piano, which I completed some days ago. I should say that the score is still rather sketchy, and is in need for a revision.  I suspect that there are numerous engraving issues, but also enharmonic spelling errors, inconsistencies, and other errors, and I would be very grateful for advice in these matters.

I would also be very glad if you can provide me with your critical comments about the music. There are so many great composers/reviewers on this site! 

Best regards to all of you  

Hello! I think there is a lot of really touching and beautiful material in here, and you play beautifully (assuming that's a real piano and not some awesome computer program). I especially enjoyed the section that begins at measure 64. I felt that this section went to the next level: not just pretty music but actual story telling. Perhaps this is something to try for with the entire piece. The beginning feels like an introduction building to the unveiling of an important theme, but the theme never comes. Instead the piece takes us through a series of vignettes, each one very lovely to listen to, but none of them standing out or reaching any sort of climax. It feels like the kind of music I'd like to eat dinner to in a fancy restaurant, but not music for the concert hall, not yet. It doesn't quite elevate the listener, but instead stays consistent. Each part is it's own little lovely dance, but these parts do not seem connected. It feels more like a character piece (or a set of short dances), less like a sonata.

Could you take one of these sections and develop it further so that the drama increases? Not that it has to be like an uber-dramatic Wagner piece or anything, but something to keep the listeners' attention so that he wants to be an active listener, he wants to go on a journey with you. Find patches of the music where the mood/dynamic/drama level stays even for entire minutes, and consider whether you could mix it up somehow. How could you give this a beginning, middle and end (right now it feels like it's all beginning, no middle)? Even the end is very even, pretty but no drama. How could you make this music tell a story?

You really do have a beautiful touch though. Have you ever written a suite of dances before? It feels to me like you could compose a set of dances, or a ballet, and it could be captivating!

It's a very nice piece. Has a vibe similar to Schubert's hungarian melody. Thanks for sharing your work.

Thanks a lot,Seni-G for your reply,

There is very much sense in what you are saying!  Actually, this piece has been a bit of an “Old Maid” for me.

I started writing it about a year ago, but somehow, I was never satisfied with it, and I could not define what was wrong.  So, I abandoned it, but occasionally, I still did some additional work on it. Two or three weeks ago, I decided to finish it. The alternative was to just forget about it all together. It did not really turn out as a sonata, as you pointed out, but I kept this as a working title.

Your analysis was a bit of an eye-opener for me. Now, I see the problem quite clearly. Most of the bits and pieces are, I think, (fairly) OK, but they are indeed too much individual. They live their own live, and I should have focused much more on interconnection and structural unity. You are right when you say that the real drama is absent. Drama is not necessarily equivalent to a huge crescendo (Wagner-ha ha). I prefer the dwelling on a theme for a longer time (precisely as you pointed out), and then, with a tiny modulation, most incredible effects can be obtained. But for this concept to be successful ,the general structure of the piece is of great importance. 

I will have a renewed look at it with new eyes (and ears-ha-ha) but I will leave it for the moment to get some distance to it. And I might also use some of the themes as a platform for something new.

I have written a number of individual dances, but a not a set of them. This would  be an interesting challenge.  

Regarding the playback:   It is mainly a computer-generated playback,  but some parts of it are played by me directly into the computer.   It would be nice to record it on an acoustic piano, but for me, to get it to a stage of a flawless performance would require a major effort.

Best regards, and thanks again!

7 hours ago, Sonataform said:

It's a very nice piece. Has a vibe similar to Schubert's hungarian melody. Thanks for sharing your work.

 

Hello Sonataform.

Thanks for your feedback. I am glad that you like the piece. In fact, Schubert has always been one of my favourite composers.

Regards

You have a wonderful gift for creating good melodies (a gift that I envy  ). This, with together a great quality playback -would you tell us the piano sound did you use-, helps greatly in creating an unified, longing, atmosphere. Reminding of Schubert, yes, but more late-romantic IMHO; something similar to Bowen's wonderful Serious Dances.

Regarding the structure, some colleagues have expressed my same feelings: has a behavior more similar to a Fantasia (or a set of pieces) than a Sonata. This happens especially after the two-minute mark: the first 40 bars work quite well as a Sonata-exposition (with non-classical tonal relationships, but that's nice!), than the development is more "wandering" that "developmental". I suggest you to take a look at Haydn's middle (Esterhazy, etc.) Sonatas, like B minor, F major and C sharp minor: they are mainly mono-thematic and written with great, haydnian, economy of means.

Overall a very nice work: I'm very curious to hear the other movements!

Hello Emiliano,

Thanks a lot for your reply. I fully agree with you that the piece does not have a Sonata structure, which I also realized earlier. I will eventually give it another title (Fantasia could be a good option), but in any case, my goal is to write an additional two or three movements. I have already a basic theme for the second movement, and it looks like it is going to be an“Andante con variazioni”. 

You are right about the late-romantic  touch.  I did this purposely, to get away a bit from the pure early-classical style. ( I love playing (ha-ha) with dissonance chords).  But there is of course Schubert in it as well in several places (Schubert is and remains one of my top favorite composers).

The playback VST was a Ivory -Steinway D-model, with some reverb added, to give the impression of a performance in a concert hall.  The VST was inserted in the Sibelius program, to produce the score as well as a playback.( I do not use a DAW, since I am not familiar in dealing with piano rolls).

I really enjoyed this piece. It's very passionate and alluring. As others have mentioned, it is a bit odd that it often suddenly stops and then resumes with a very different melody and character. In that sense it's more like a collection of etudes.

I also would have like to see a bit more variation in the lower hand. It often sticks to the same supporting rhythm for the entire musical idea each time it changes, but I would have liked to see some more chopin-esque jumps (like for a dramatic moment, a big jump down with a low pedaled note in the left hand). Perhaps giving the left hand the melody a bit more as well, I can only recall once or twice at the left hand gets the melody with the right hand supporting.

Overall a fantastic piece though, and I hope you continue it - as etudes, or maybe smoothing it out and making it into a proper sonata, or who knows what, but I would really enjoy more!

Wonderful.  I agree sounds very Schubertian!

On 2016-12-19 at 3:23 PM, SebastianViola said:

I really enjoyed this piece. It's very passionate and alluring. As others have mentioned, it is a bit odd that it often suddenly stops and then resumes with a very different melody and character. In that sense it's more like a collection of etudes.

I also would have like to see a bit more variation in the lower hand. It often sticks to the same supporting rhythm for the entire musical idea each time it changes, but I would have liked to see some more chopin-esque jumps (like for a dramatic moment, a big jump down with a low pedaled note in the left hand). Perhaps giving the left hand the melody a bit more as well, I can only recall once or twice at the left hand gets the melody with the right hand supporting.

Overall a fantastic piece though, and I hope you continue it - as etudes, or maybe smoothing it out and making it into a proper sonata, or who knows what, but I would really enjoy more!

 

 

Thanks a lot, Sebastian, for your feedback,

I agree with you that that the piece consists of several more or less “stand alone” themes, which is not really the structure of a sonata. I can only explain this by the fact that the various bits were written at very different occasions.  I definitively should have done a better analysis, and changed the endings of these themes in a less  abrupt way.  I can imagine that the dance motif starting at ms 129 can be perceived as a bit odd, but at the time, I just could not resist to incorporate it. But I should also say that I made a number of efforts towards integration and interlinking.  At ms 145, I brought the music back to the main theme, but then I wanted to recur to the crescendo of ms 32 in a new way, which I did via a series of modulations and finally ending up with the crescendo again at ms 159 , after a rapid key switch to B-flat minor in ms 158 .  I was rather pleased with this. This contrasting escalation is for me the most dramatic point in the piece (although it arrives rather late in relation to ms 32). In the ending (a sort of coda) starting at ms 161, there is a strong relation to ms 36,  but then, after a short escapade in a classical way, there is a jump to a surprise, Jazz-like harmony ( definitely not Schubert or Beethoven-ha-ha), and I needed  a few measures to come back to the original F-sharp minor. I was also pleased with the last two measures. A “bravura” ending would have been misplaced.

But you are right about the left hand.  Some Chopin-like jumps?  Well-yes, perhaps, but certainly some more switches of the melody to the lower register.  I will leave it for the moment (I am working now on the second movement), and will take up your suggestions at a later occasion.

Thanks again, and best regards!

2 hours ago, bkho said:

Wonderful.  I agree sounds very Schubertian!

 

Thanks a lot bkho, for your feedback. I am glad that you like the piece

Best.