Piano Sonata No. 1

Well, here is my first piano sonata. One day, I just started writing and went on and on, and in the end I had a work longer than I intended. Anyway, here it is.

Stylistically, it's not that different from my earlier works, except that it is a bit more tonal in some places (and less so in others). Like most of my works, it is in one movement. Anyone who's brave enough to try it at the piano may feel free to do so. Anyway, what do you think about it?

I simply love parts of this...It seems however that the only parts I like are the more tonal ones, even though I do like atonality a great deal. It's just that atonality seems to go hand in hand with randomness for the piece. It seems, in parts, that every measure is from an entirely different piece and you just threw them all together! I can see and almost hear the melodic themes within all this chaos, but I think you should have relied on them more. A lot of times it is exactly what people think of atonal music--random notes!

You go from up to down to up to down too quickly! The piece is a veritable roller coaster of sounds ideas and most of all rhythms. I think a lot of these little sections would work much better if arranged in a different order, something more flowing and cohesive. Right now it really is all jumbled. You need to organize these ideas, lest it stay a mess.

At some of the parts where you mark it the loudest you have the fewest notes! ? This struck me as odd--you should beef up those parts! Add some interesting harmonies rather than random dissonance! Your use of the tritone keeps coming back, which I like.

After going on and on with no form, you end it! ? Didn't make much sense!

I really really liked the more cohesive ideas. I think this piece could greatly benefit from some cutting and pasting, making it flow more.

Did you write this at a piano, or did you write it all with Sibelius?

This is one of those pieces I think might definitely come across better in live performance.

Interesting...I agree with Nick in a lot that he said. You have a multitude of great musical ideas going on rapid-fire in this piece - and depending on how you look at it, that can work for or against it. This reminds me of Boccherini (not in style, of course), and I love him - but I often find myself wishing he'd developed some of his wonderful ideas more before moving on to the next one so soon. I don't always understand this kind of harmonic language, and there may be something structurally that I'm missing...there aren't enough signposts readily recognisable to me.

The humour in the piece was not lost on me - the whimsical interpolation of a couple of stride-bass sections in there especially.