Sonata nr 3 (first movement)

I am currently working on a new piano sonata.  I just completed the first movement, and I would be very grateful for your comments

The sonata is really Schubertian for me: Great melody and quite like his moment musical with the modulations of keys and contrast between major and minor. Free and humorous sometimes with attracting power.

The movement is quite episodic for me. Is there an underlying structure in it?

Definitely looking forward to later movements. What will be the style of them?

Very well done!  Quite an underwhelming style of writing for the piano.  It's very low-key and subtle and nonchalant (Ok - I think I've run out of synonyms now LoL).  Although meas. 119 - 192 seem like they're all in 3/4 rather than your marked meter of 6/8.  I never get the feel expected of a 6/8 meter in that part, nor does there seem to be some kind of 6/8 - 3/4 hemiola going on either.  Thanks for sharing!  Is this a real performance?  Sure sounds like one.  Great job!

Great score, very calm indeed, where can I hear the first 2 sonatas?

Hello Henry,

Thank you very much for your comments. In fact, I am often inspired by the music of Schubert, as in the case of this piece. It is true that there are a number of different episodes and I often like to write my pieces in this way- I did not have a plan for a defined underlying structure. It sort of developed organically by itself. The difficult thing is always to avoid (what shall I call it) an ”out of place”  musical progression between the sections. It is difficult to describe this, but you will understand what I mean.

There will be two more movements. I have not made a final decision about them, but for the second movement, my thoughts are going in the direction of a theme with variations, and the third movement (as a contrast to the first movement) will probably be  a (molto) allegro, also based on a particular theme. It will take me quite some time to pull everything together, but I will post it in due time.

Thanks a lot Peter for your constructive comments. Immediately, I must respond to your comment about the meter. How could I have overlooked this!   You are right, it should be ¾, and I will change it and upload the corrected score. In fact, in several places ( after ms 171) my notations are already in line with  ¾, but somehow, I forgot to make an adjustment.

Unfortunately, this is not a real performance. It would be much better, but unfortunately I would not be able to do this anymore after a hand injury and a loss of dexterity.

Hello hw1234

Thank you for you feedback!  

My earlier sonatas are also uploaded. You can hear them if you go to my profile and click on “my compositions”, where you will find them

Corrected score

Very delicate piece. Everything in this movement is telling me that you did put a decent amount of effort on it, tell me if I'm wrong. Despite of that, it sounds effortless in the sense it flows without resistance through my ears and my mind. The melodic line is very beautifully constructed and the Alberti bass doesn't get repetitive.

What is perhaps redundant is the piano dynamics mark. You don't generally abandon it up to M134 which is not neccesarily bad at all, but I feel the adagio espressivo part could have benefited from a more flexible approach in that regard. However, your composition, your choice :).
Despite you might have done this on purpose, it seems strange to find a bar full of sharp notes in a 4b key (M179).

There are many other things I missed. I'm listening to it again. I was wrong in the dynamics part, the digital recording just badly distinguishes between ppp, mp and p if it even tries to do it (perhaps not and my mind just makes it up, but articulations are neatly done at least). The score is very nicely engraved. I really enjoy the Animato section, a lot.

I know this is all disordered but hope you don't mind much, I really liked this work of yours. Looking forward to listen to next movement once you get done with them. Thank you for sharing. 

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.


 

On 11/16/2022 at 7:35 PM, Omicronrg9 said:

Very delicate piece. Everything in this movement is telling me that you did put a decent amount of effort on it, tell me if I'm wrong. Despite of that, it sounds effortless in the sense it flows without resistance through my ears and my mind. The melodic line is very beautifully constructed and the Alberti bass doesn't get repetitive.

What is perhaps redundant is the piano dynamics mark. You don't generally abandon it up to M134 which is not neccesarily bad at all, but I feel the adagio espressivo part could have benefited from a more flexible approach in that regard. However, your composition, your choice :).
Despite you might have done this on purpose, it seems strange to find a bar full of sharp notes in a 4b key (M179).

There are many other things I missed. I'm listening to it again. I was wrong in the dynamics part, the digital recording just badly distinguishes between ppp, mp and p if it even tries to do it (perhaps not and my mind just makes it up, but articulations are neatly done at least). The score is very nicely engraved. I really enjoy the Animato section, a lot.

I know this is all disordered but hope you don't mind much, I really liked this work of yours. Looking forward to listen to next movement once you get done with them. Thank you for sharing. 

Kind regards,
Daniel–Ømicrón.


 

 

Hello Daniel,

Thank you very much for your feedback, and I am glad that you like the piece.  It´s true that it was quite an effort to write this movement. At first, I was not satisfied, and had to rewrite most of it. But eventually I think that it became acceptable.

Regarding the use of dynamic marks, I should perhaps have been more specific. But often it is a bit arbitrary. Some famous composers use very few dynamic marks and leave it more or less to the judgement of the musician, whereas other composers provide ubiquitous instructions.  And when you listen to top notch interpretations of great pianists, I find that they often ignore very much of the composers instructions.

You bring up a good point about digital playback. This is really a nightmare. The overall dynamic range is very poor. For example, when I try the adjust for pp, I get some ugly muddy sound. I think that it has something to do with jumps from one sampling layer to the next one. To get a proper difference between p and mp is also very difficult. On a real (good!) analogue piano this is easy. Another issue with electronic playback is to incorporate small differences in articulation (including rubato, small attacks, small tempo changes etc.). In principle, this could all be accomplished in a DAW, but for me, this would be an endless task..

Regarding the sharps in M 179, this is an interesting question. I actually did this on purpose.  The transition starting at MS 175 to 180 is actually one of the things, which I was really pleased with. When setting flats or sharps, I looked at the fundamental scales of the measures in the transition.  As far as I can see, this is Bb-minor for MS 176, Gb- major for MS 177, and then F-major for MS178.

But for MS 179, I can only see that it is F-sharp minor with an augmented E in the scale. I did not see a reasonable scale with only flats. Thus, I wrote it with sharps. Maybe, you would still find it more convenient to write with flats, but it did not make sense for me when I played it on the piano.  I would be very interested to learn what you think of it. Maybe I am wrong (?)

Once more, I want to thank you for your interesting comments.

Best regards.

PS- I uploaded an adjusted score after making some minor corrections - DS

On 11/20/2022 at 9:38 PM, panta rei said:

But eventually I think that it became acceptable.

Yeah it indeed did.

On 11/20/2022 at 9:38 PM, panta rei said:

Regarding the use of dynamic marks, I should perhaps have been more specific.

Whatever suits you. If you do not think you need dynamics or you don't want to be that specific (regardless of what a potential player of your music would do) it's completely alright. After all dynamics are another source of "control" you may or may not need, depending on the piece.

On 11/20/2022 at 9:38 PM, panta rei said:

I think that it has something to do with jumps from one sampling layer to the next one

Yeah, most likely. Probably expensive libs don't have that issue but they are, ahem, expensive. Most articulation can be somewhat done in music notation software but it will never match human playing I guess.
 

On 11/20/2022 at 9:38 PM, panta rei said:

But for MS 179, I can only see that it is F-sharp minor with an augmented E in the scale. I did not see a reasonable scale with only flats.

Yeah if you don't want to repeat a note with and without accidental, jump or use double flats I don't see another way. However now that I look again, shouldn't flats in M180 be bracketed?  I myself often doubt in cases like Fb vs E in the context of lots of flats around and eventually it's a matter of each composer background, I don't think there's much written in stone here, so if you wrote it like this:  I may have not complained but someone else may have. I believe it's equivalent. Even something like this  could be explained as "flats when you go down, sharps when you go up" and we may agree this feels kinda strange but I again don't think there's nothing like an absolute truth (just like what happens in some fingerings). I found it strange but very likely some of my works do have things like that.

Kind regards!!
 

On 11/23/2022 at 3:37 PM, Omicronrg9 said:

 

Yeah if you don't want to repeat a note with and without accidental, jump or use double flats I don't see another way. However now that I look again, shouldn't flats in M180 be bracketed?  I myself often doubt in cases like Fb vs E in the context of lots of flats around and eventually it's a matter of each composer background, I don't think there's much written in stone here, so if you wrote it like this:  I may have not complained but someone else may have. I believe it's equivalent. Even something like this  could be explained as "flats when you go down, sharps when you go up" and we may agree this feels kinda strange but I again don't think there's nothing like an absolute truth (just like what happens in some fingerings). I found it strange but very likely some of my works do have things like that.

Kind regards!!
 

 

Hello again,

Thanks a lot for your kind response!  Spelling is certainly an interesting issue. There are often situations where I find it difficult to make the right choice. Also when I look at some  work of great composers (like for example some works of Schuman), I cannot always understand the reason for some of his spellings. Therefore it is so nice when people provide me with alternative opinions and explanations. I can see that your two suggestions for MS 179 are certainly possible and legible. (I would probably prefer the first one). Also, I agree that the flats in MS 180 should be bracketed, but maybe it becomes a bit messy (at least for sight reading), and this would be another reason to go for flats in MS 179.  Altogether, I am very grateful for your engagement! Thanks a lot!!

(In the meantime, I wrote the second movement of the sonata. I will post it as well and I would be curious to find out what you think of it.)

Best regards

This sound make me really invested in it...