Piano Sonata in C# Minor (Major editing in progress)

The entire Piano Sonata is complete. Hopefully I have fixed any problems that all of you have pointed out.

let me make a few notation comments (as is my wont):

allegretto and furioso... not two indicators that really go together. I understand that you want "slower than allegro", but honestly, just put Allegro furioso with a tempo marking. The "-etto" ending has a strong sense of "lighter than", "less than", and to add that to "furiously" just seems like a contradiction. Besides, your movement isn't MARKED "allegretto furioso" anywhere other than as some subtitle. Forget the movement "subtitle". It's unnecessary, especially since you are only using tempo and character indicators as a title. Just put it in the tempo itself, right in the score. If you were using some extra-musical descriptor as a title, then sure, go ahead, knock yourself out.


measure 18... yes, "rit"... measure 19, "allegretto"...?? after a "rit" you put "a tempo", you don't repeat your initial tempo marking.

measure 19, remove that extra "leggiero" below the staff. it's unnecessary. The marking "leggiero" goes above the staff, below "a tempo".

measure 21 reverse those stems. The half notes are NOT your main musical element. The eighth notes above them are. Half note stems down, eighth note stems up.

meausre 22 on the 3rd beat I'd recommend using tied eighth notes instead of that quarter, purely for clarity of notation.

measure 25, it would be important to know if that rit poco is for only that measure? the next two measures? when doing a ritenuto over multiple measures, particularly "poco rit", it is important to use a dotted /dashed line to show how far it is going.

measure 27... what did we say about "rit"? get rid of that "allegretto". Put in an "a tempo" instead.

measure 28 - remove that extraneous hairpin diminuendo. it's impossible to play. you want a "subito pp" on the next measure.

this will probably be my only "musical" comment
measure 36.. why not repeat in the left hand that, maybe transposed a 6th down or something, the brief phrase from measure 35? it would give your "poco ritenuto" there some meaning. Right now, all it is is a held note. You may as well simply have put a fermata on it instead.
I'd say, put the "rit" at 35, add those extra notes to the left hand in 36, and start measure 37 with "poco meno mosso <quarter> = 75". (by the way, why put a metronome marking HERE, but not at the beginning?)

measure 39-40 grace notes require a tiny little slur (and again at 50-51, etc...).

measure 55 TEMPO MARKINGS GO ABOVE THE STAFF!!!!!!!

measure 61 which is it, molto rit or allargando? It can't be both.
Oh, and use a regular fermata. Not that square thing.

By the way, at tempo changes, it would be best to use double barlines.

measure 64... been there, fixed that, right?

measure 65, same thing as measure 22: tied eighth notes instead of that quarter.

measure 71 is a bit tricky. are you doing a diminuendo from ff to pp? if not, then it might be important to show this with an exception to notation: put the pp indication ABOVE the staff to clearly show it is ONLY the right hand that is pp.

measure 72 you should repeat the pp over the right hand part.

ok, I lied, this is my second music comment
this whole thing of overlapping dynamics, I don't like. if you REALLY play the ff at the same time as the pp, well, you won't HEAR the pp notes.

my suggestion?
measure 71 change the right hand rhythm to an eighth note triplet, with an eighth note rest as the 1st beat of it on that C#, then alter the last beat of the measure to a triplet as well.

the issue then becomes that ff left hand motif.
To avoid an overlap of dynamics (as well as a harmonic incongruity... measure 72 left hand is NOT good, it changes harmony on a 16th note) I'd say simply cut the G# octave on the beat. it's not part of the harmopny that the left hand is playing anyways. that G# is part of the right hand, and the dynamic is a complete contradiction to the right hand.. so basically, it doesn't belong. put a 16th note rest instead of the G#, leave the F# downward arpeggio ff as your "contrast" motif.

then again, the right hand has to alter its rhythm like in measure 71.

measure 77 your harmony is very confused. bad counterpoint (those octaves betweeen the right and left hand are ugly. (ok, I lied again.. that makes 3 musical comments)

measure 83, remove that slur inside the staff, and add slurs to each grace note. by the way, that is some rotten piano writing there. it's VERY awkward hand position for the left hand.

meaure 86, again, extraneous slur inside the staff.

measure 90-91, those rolled chords - very awkward.

measure 92 on... repeat after me: remove extraneous slurs (and correct awkward/unplayabale left hand passages. as long as you're aware that the choice is either to finger the lowest part with ONLY the pinky (very hard at tempo) or to finger the upper part of the left hand with ONLY the thumb

measure 108 there's an extra sharp in there, that doesn't belong

measure 100, I think you know what the problem is here

measure 122, if your intention is that the very LOWEST notes are the "espressivo" notes, then you will have to split the beams into individual voices.
Also, there's that ugly square fermata again. change it to a round fermata. I honestly don't care if "it has a different meaning than a round one". A fermata is a fermata. The rest is bullsh**.



Musically, the real problem with this piece is that it is a bit too confused harmonically. There's a ton of chromatic scalar passages, but the harmony underneath doesn't really support it. This is really one of those cases of "too many notes" for the harmony. It's very very limited harmonically. Sticking very closely to its home tonic. But it's also drowning in rather pointless chromaticism. The problem is the chromaticism isn't justified by the harmony. It's almost entirely decorative.

Lots of what COULD be wonderfully pungent friction ends up being negated by rather ordinary return to I- IV -V harmony.

Still, this is a very major accomplishement. Don't let my negative comments get you down. At this point, what would help you tremendously would be a firmer understanding of common practice harmony, replacement chords, and modulation. Instead of relying on the passing melodic chromaticism for colour, it would be more interesting if you explored actual chromatic harmony.

It's not that you don't have talent or a good ear. That is definately there. Now you need a better grounding in harmony, and some counterpoint. I'm looking forward to your next pieces, to see your improvements.

I'm looking over the next two movements really quickly, and seeing many of the same problems as with the 1st movement.

For example, in the 2nd movement there are quite a few improperly resolved 7th chords. Along with some harmonic appogiaturas, as well as melody not supported by the harmony.

and again with the "titles" for movements. forget those. either put it as your tempo indicator or forget them. Either your finale is "Vivace energetico" as a tempo marking, or it isn't. To be quite frank, it looks like an error in the score - "oh, look, the composer was GOING to put energetico, but then forgot".

and more of the stem problems (measure 39, 3rd movement.. stem direction completely wrong)

watch out for collisions between the material on one staff and that on another. that's VERY bad notation.

by the way, measure 72, 3rd movement, put those right hand notes back up into the upper staff. no need for a cross staff there. we're used to reading a few ledger lines between staves. at least that way it avoids putting that ugly hairpin and duplicate dynamic below the staff the way you did!

measure 84, 3rd movement, put a little bracket with your quintuplet. right now it looks like a fingering instead of a quintuplet.

measure 92, 3rd movement, why is there an A# before the trill? In music after Mozart's time, trills start ON the trilled note, not above. We are definately "after Mozart's time" even if you are writing in a common practice style.

measure 117, 3rd movement, avoid using those baroque ornament symbols. Write your ornaments out as grace notes.

measure 119-130, 3rd movement, there's something wrong with the harmony there. Notably, measure 121 part 2 of beat 1, the harmony is... off. but it's even worse at measure 127, 2nd part of beat 2. I see what you're trying to do, but it's not really working. The motivic repetition/transposition is causing a harmonic error that clashes with the rest of the passage.

meaure 132, 3rd movement, is one of those examples of harmonic appogiatura you do a lot of. The harmony changes on the 3rd part of beat 1, to the harmony of beat 2. What that creates is a sense that the beat is NOT in 6/8 but in 3/4 with a heavy syncopation on 2. Except you aren't really creating a hemiola to support that harmonic appogiatura.

And then the last part of that measure, the bass line descends G# - F#... to... what? it doesn't follow through.

Thanks a lot for your time and comments, QC. These are extremely valuable. I will try to fix most, if not all, of what you said soon. I will probably rewrite the entire first movement using the same ideas and motifs. It is just not consistent musically and notationally with the other movements.

Fantastic! i love this very impressive music.
i like the third movement best, dramatic and sweet.

id like to play this sonata, but i would like to hear a Major sonata from you, happy music.
looking forward to hear the first movement reworked.

Great work Mael!

Good work, I enjoyed your contribution. My inexperience however prevents me from presenting any technical comments.

cheers

OK, I have some little spots that I didn't like, but I can talk to you about that at school. In general though, I'm very impressed. I liked the presto (though I did notice the akward (sp?) counterpoint at the beginning, but you have already stated that you're going to fix it.) , but I'm not thrilled about the adagio. I'm not sure what it was, and maybe it's because classical/baroque isn't to my taste, but there didn't seem to be enough structure there and it seemed a little forced, whereas the presto was easier to grasp and seemed a little more natural. Does that make sense at all? I'm not sure, ask me later so I have time to think about it a bit. The Vivace, in general, was pretty good, but I didn't like it as much as the presto.

I hope that wasn't too harsh, I know I couldn't compose something like that and I'm very impressed and I know the other kids at school will be as well, especially after you've made all the adjustments, though if this were the final product, they'd still be in awe. I don't have time to look through it again tonight, but if you want more details talk to me at school.

Oh yeah, is there going to be orchestral accompaniment to this as a later date?