Piano Sonata in A minor

After a bit of a dry sepll, I finally finished this piano sonata which is intended to be in the Mozart/early Beethoven style (I'm a big fan of Beethoven's early sonatas).  I had finished the first and third movements awhile ago and only recently finished a version of the second movement which I am still unsure about but welcome any impressions.

I think it is a very enjoyable, balanced and well-written piece of work.
The piano sounds good and the dynamics respond quite well.
I liked the Allegro very much, it's lively, always interesting (I even didn't dislike the repetition of the first part, which often bores me.
In the second part, the initial part is great, a bit “Bellinian” for the length of its phrases. The following part begins more unstable and takes on darker tints, a good contrast. The part from bar 35 surprises by its march-like character, which leaves a super-mozartian melody in bar 45.

The final part also has memorable sequences and a satisfying closing character.

I see that the movements are written quite some time apart. Nevertheless, the work seems very coherent to me, which I always like. Although it is not my preferred style, I enjoyed listening to it very much. Thank you.

18 hours ago, Luis Hernández said:

I think it is a very enjoyable, balanced and well-written piece of work.
The piano sounds good and the dynamics respond quite well.
I liked the Allegro very much, it's lively, always interesting (I even didn't dislike the repetition of the first part, which often bores me.
In the second part, the initial part is great, a bit “Bellinian” for the length of its phrases. The following part begins more unstable and takes on darker tints, a good contrast. The part from bar 35 surprises by its march-like character, which leaves a super-mozartian melody in bar 45.

The final part also has memorable sequences and a satisfying closing character.

I see that the movements are written quite some time apart. Nevertheless, the work seems very coherent to me, which I always like. Although it is not my preferred style, I enjoyed listening to it very much. Thank you.

 

 

Thanks for listening and taking the time to comment.  I did struggle on the second movement (slow tempo movements/pieces come less naturally to me) but it at least was started around the time the other movements were completed which helped to at least maintain some continuity.

Why hello there!  Below you find my feedback on your sonata. It will be dived into the following sections: Musical form, Harmony, and melodic form. 

First movement:

In the first two measures, you have established the primary theme of the exposition, and it seems you are writing in sentence form?  If so, then there are some minor improvements you can do.   In measure two, maybe, you can have dominant harmony underneath the contrasting idea. That way, in measure 3-4 you can progress from V-I.  

Now after that, you need a transition.  Here you need a way to modulate to the new tonal region(III, VI, or IV).  Once you have established this, you will either need to provide a MC or deny it.  To me, you have it! 

Now, after that, you should have secondary theme. To me, this where I am bit lost. Is there a reason why you repeated the first theme? Cause to me, you are lacking secondary theme, and codetta. 

The devolvement is off to a great start, but once you have more material it will be better.  Then you have recap...

It's always nice to have more sonatas on YCF. And I don't really find any huge flaws here, good work.

I think all the movements have good structure and form helped balancing things.
The first movement definitely shares more than one thing with Mozart's A minor Piano sonata first movement though.

I think a few places could do more harmonising, for example the staccato diminish chords in the first movement felt dry.

That being said there a few places here and there that frustrates me.
The first theme of the first movement reoccurs too frequently for my liking. Especially without variations. Perhaps it's something the performer can trump on, but it's helpful for the composer to inject variations to maintain his/her sense of authorship, I think.
Perhaps out of my own inability to play really difficult things, I feel like many runs are difficult without contributing much musically. Like mvmt 1 mm 61-65, those left hand semiquavers felt needlessly unpatterned. bar 134 of mvmt 3, 15th jump on the left hand, La Campenella 2.0? Can't hear it anyway. But do feel free to rebut on this point, I might be missing on something.

but overall I think this work is a positive for YCF

EDIT: oh my, a neurologist... and your works date back so much too! Oh and also sorry I kinda skipped your second movement here.

Hi @bkho!

Really great, accessible and lucid first movement, with many welcome harmonic surprises and a memorable melody.  Even in places where there isn't much harmonization, the piece doesn't sound empty or like it has to be filled with more harmonic tones all the time.  Second movement - slow movements are sometimes not my favorite.  In this one, I felt like some of the 16th note chromatic fioraturas didn't really make sense.  The retransition back to the main theme also used block chords a bit like a crutch that I felt wasn't very effective in smoothly bringing the listener back.  I liked the third movement the best.  This is probably the most Beethovenian one as well.  The transitions were really smooth in this one.  It also reminded me of one of the rondo's of one of his piano concertos.  The melody was once again very lyrical and well developed.  Great job overall and thanks for sharing!

On 12/9/2024 at 1:30 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Hi @bkho!

Really great, accessible and lucid first movement, with many welcome harmonic surprises and a memorable melody.  Even in places where there isn't much harmonization, the piece doesn't sound empty or like it has to be filled with more harmonic tones all the time.  Second movement - slow movements are sometimes not my favorite.  In this one, I felt like some of the 16th note chromatic fioraturas didn't really make sense.  The retransition back to the main theme also used block chords a bit like a crutch that I felt wasn't very effective in smoothly bringing the listener back.  I liked the third movement the best.  This is probably the most Beethovenian one as well.  The transitions were really smooth in this one.  It also reminded me of one of the rondo's of one of his piano concertos.  The melody was once again very lyrical and well developed.  Great job overall and thanks for sharing!

 

I appreciate the comments!  I agree, the second movement is the weakest.  I always have trouble with slow movements and kind of approached it in the end of just completing one so I could call this a finished sonata.  I am proudest of the third movement which I think best captured my intent to immerse myself in Beethoven's style.