Clarinet piece

Hello everyone, here's a short Allegro for clarinet, would love to get your feedback on it! Thanks a bunch -G

I enjoyed listening to this, particularly the development section which contains Bachian passages (if such a term exists). 
 

Thanks so much for listening @Markus Boyd! I did think about Bach in the development (especially right before the end of the section it echoes bits of the e minor toccata) because I wanted some stylistic contrast with the two themes. Thanks again and I would appreciate any advice you might have, your music is really good!

When listening to this sometimes my ear is fooled into a kind of rhythmic illusion that the first eighth note is a downbeat and the half notes in the piano seem syncopated.  This happens throughout the piece it seems but I think it can be fixed by placing a slight accent on the beginning of each group of four eighth notes (accenting beats 1 and 3 which I think is how a real clarinetist would play those passages).  This is really just the fault of a mechanical simulated performance that you have here I guess.  Other than that I really enjoy the interplay between the clarinet and piano!  Thanks for sharing!

That was a fun piece, lots of intelligent touches. The syncopated rhythm in particular is infectious. The only thing that brought me out of the piece was the abrupt tempo change - I think I would keep it at the same tempo throughout, though I can see what you're going for! Thanks for posting

Thank you so much for listening, @PaperComposer! And thanks for very thoughtful and useful comments. Agreed that the half notes seem syncopated and accents would help. I also changed the dynamics of the piano from mf to p and put an accent on the right hand half notes. Otherwise the syncopated-sounding doesn't really go away because the left hand plays a full chord on the second beat against single half notes of the right hand on first and third beat.

And thanks for the kind words @BritishCompositeur! I'm not sure what do you mean by the tempo change--maybe the codette at the end of each section, where the clarinet starts playing semiquavers? The tempo change is very slight, there. The second theme is only slightly sostenuto (138 vs. the initial 144--the codette go back to 144), but maybe the change from quavers to semiquavers makes it seem too abrupt. I'll try and keep it to 138 and see how it sounds. 

Hi @Giacomo925,

I enjoy this movement very much, very refreshing. As noted by Markus and Peter, the interplay between clarinet and piano is very good. The harmony in the development is very ingenious. I would actually suggest to use an A clarinet for the sonata since I see the second movement is in B minor. But that's a really minor point.

One issue here is the scoring in p.8 for the piano part. Bar 96's piano left hand is confusing with an up an octave sign in the left hand. i believe in bar 97 the right hand is still in bass clef even though a treble clef is indicated here, and for b.98-101 a treble clef should be used for the right hand. Other than these I find this very enjoyable. Thank you for sharing!

Henry