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Hello everyone! Here's a chamber piece I wrote a while back. The brief was to write something in response to Gluck's 'Dance of the Blessed Spirits'. It starts reasonably elegantly then quickly spirals into mischievous chaos with an irreverent disregard for Gluck's compositional ideals! Do have a listen if you get the chance and tell me what you think! Thanks very much! Jamie

I am in the middle of composing my first keyboard sonata. It is in a classical era style, as I imagine all my other pieces will be. Here in the past, I was given note of Classical Form by William Caplin, which focuses on the form and functions exclusively of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. However, I don't want to be limited to only those three composers when I study classical era styles. It would be just like people wanting to compose in a baroque style being limited to compositions of Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi; or those wanting to compose in a romantic style being limited to compositions of Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms. And besides, I have a problem with Beethoven. You see, I consider his middle and late works to be far more a part of the romantic style and era than that of the classical style and era. CPE Bach, Gluck, Soler, and even Scarlatti were truer to a classical style than Beethoven ever was, and Beethoven was as true to romanticism (especially in his middle and late works) as was Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Brahms. You know, I think the best way to learn to compose in a classical style (in my case) is to get some hands-on experience with sheet music of composers that came from the classical era. And I'll bet my life savings that those composers didn't need to study all that mathematical crap to create works of their own. They, like JS Bach of the baroque era, were largely self-taught and learned to compose from reading previous musical works, listening to them, and using their own imagination. I prefer looking at sheet music, but finding classical sheet music online for free I find hard to find. Currently, I am trying to compose the second movement to my first sonata. I will need sheet music for the following works to help me: CPE Bach's Keyboard Concerto in C minor, H. 448 Wq. 37 Christoph Willibald Gluck's ballet Alessandro ​In the meantime, have a look at the first movement of my sonata in PDF and MIDI format. As a side note, the 96th keyboard sonata of Antonio Soler (1729-1783) sounds like an early frigging Mozart! Only Spanish, though. Keyboard Sonata in C minor, I.pdf Keyboard Sonata in C minor, I.mid