Sonata nr 5, first movement

Hello everybody,

Here is the first part of a new piano sonata. The piece is maybe not in accordance with the formal sonata structure, but for the moment, I could not find a better title. In any case, my plan is to write two additional movements.

My inspiration for this piece came from a well- known Swedish folk song. I used fragment of this song in the first eight bars, and then, I departed from it.  Also, I attempted to use some more modern (a kind of jazz-like) harmony here and there. I am curious to know what you think of this.

You will notice a further development of early motifs, for example in bar 125 and 137.. The latter is re-stated in bar 157-164 (including a sort of extra repeat), which serves more or less as an announcement of the approaching end of the piece. It took me a long time before I managed to write the ending. The break-through came when I added bar 169 and 170. A direct transition from bar 168 to 171 is of course also possible, but I think that this would be a bit boring.

There is certainly a need for a revision of the score. Particularly regarding the issue of enharmonic spelling (Henry?). I would be very grateful for corrections and/or suggestions

The whole movement sounds very "safe", almost too much for my taste. But I like the harmonic territories you explored. The 2/4 section feels like it doesn't create enough contrast with the outer parts of the movement (perhaps it's part of the "safe"ness I was talking about).

The score notations are a bit off imo so i had to rely on your computer generated playback instead of imagining the sound with my reading of your score, and you know playback has its limitations in delivery compared to live performance, so I don't think my comments here are the fairest, but here we go.

Indeed there are issues with enharmonics (e.g. as early as bars 3-4) but I won't go into detail. I have a problem with visually essential rests being removed (compared bars 16 to 24). Bars 44 (and similar places), if, according to the playback audio, I feel like in the lower staff the fourth and eighth quaver "belongs" to the lower voice instead of the upper voice, to mirror the melody, but feel free to disagree.

Overall I feel like this is something you can potentially work on to become a multimovement piece, I am eager to see the progress.

On 10/30/2024 at 12:04 AM, PCC said:

The whole movement sounds very "safe", almost too much for my taste. But I like the harmonic territories you explored. The 2/4 section feels like it doesn't create enough contrast with the outer parts of the movement (perhaps it's part of the "safe"ness I was talking about).

The score notations are a bit off imo so i had to rely on your computer generated playback instead of imagining the sound with my reading of your score, and you know playback has its limitations in delivery compared to live performance, so I don't think my comments here are the fairest, but here we go.

Indeed there are issues with enharmonics (e.g. as early as bars 3-4) but I won't go into detail. I have a problem with visually essential rests being removed (compared bars 16 to 24). Bars 44 (and similar places), if, according to the playback audio, I feel like in the lower staff the fourth and eighth quaver "belongs" to the lower voice instead of the upper voice, to mirror the melody, but feel free to disagree.

Overall I feel like this is something you can potentially work on to become a multimovement piece, I am eager to see the progress.

 

 

Thanks a lot for your comments !

-  I am not quite sure if I understand what you mean by “safe”, but I have to tell you that I am somehow not so happy with everything and as you say, some more contrasts (maybe in the middle section) might improve the piece.  I will have a renewed look at it in due time, but I must leave it for a while to get ”a distance” to it.    Part of the issue may also be related to the MIDI playback (poor dynamics, poor treatment of the voices in chords etc.). I am always frustrated by MIDI renditions. The difference between a MIDI and a live performance by skilled musicians is incomparable.

-  Yes, the notation issues need to be addressed. I made an attempt to correct some of the enharmonic spellings, but there are probably several more that need a revision. This is one of my recurrent problems. I use Sibelius software, and I make the note inputs from a MIDI keyboard. This is a fast and convenient procedure, but the software is unable to recognize deviations from the tonal key, so I end up with some very weird spelling. And my ability to detect these errors is rather moderate.

-  You are right about the rests: I removed them because they were clashing with the notes, and made a mess of the score. Of course, I should have left them and instead, I should have rearranged them.

-   It makes sense to put the fourth and eighth quavers in the lower voice.

-  I am putting up a revised score, and I hope that it looks a bit better

I really want to thank you for your engagement and your excellent and valuable suggestions!