Olympic Sonatina in C - MTNA Competition Entry

Greetings, fellow composers!

Having been a lurker and occasional commenter over the last several months, I have finally mustered the nerve to post a piece on here. :D

Here I have a piece I composed for this year's MTNA student composition competition.

This was originally intended as the first movement of a three-movement sonata. Although the second movement is complete, time constraints left me unable to complete the third in in time for the competition, and so I am submitting merely the first, now named "sonatina." It is based largely on a chaotic improvisation born while watching the Olympic gymnastics finals on TV at midnight - hence the name. A few days later, I analyzed the transcription of it and identified the basic materials I would use to create this Sonata... I mean, "Sonatina."

I consider this to be a purely tonal, if often rather chromatic, piece. I drew deep inspiration from Erno Lendvai's analysis of Bartok's music, particularly the "axis system." I experimented (to my liking) in this work with combining this chromatic system with the more traditional harmonic functions I am working with in school. This resulted in constructing the entire piece off of a single harmonic progression of descending major thirds: C - Ab - E - C. The flat sixth scale degree is treated as the subdominant, and the major third is treated as the dominant.

The form is of a straightforward sonata-allegro movement. After a brief introduction, outlining the main harmonic progression, a series of three themes are introduced, with a closing theme, which are then repeated. The development section (long for Mozart, short for Beethoven) is mostly based on the first theme, with brushes of the others present throughout. The recapitulation brings back the first three themes, now all in the tonic. This is interrupted by cadenza and pseudo-development passages, before an embellished statement of the first theme brings the movement to a close.

I identify the themes as follows:

A. A lyrical, expressive cantabile line in C, embodying the main harmonic and expressive argument of the piece. This theme contains all twelve tones - albeit in an entirely tonal manner - stays completely within the tonic axis; C and F# function as tonics, with the "subdominants and dominants" thereof playing prominent harmonic roles throughout.

B. Here, a lively, spritely theme in Ab. This is much more embellished than the other themes, and has a much stronger sense of scale (mostly the aeolian mode), but retains the axis feel, with the addition of some brutal bitonality. This has a bit of an

Finale 2007c - [Olympic Sonatina].pdf

I plan to write a lot more about this piece later, but I am restricted on time at the moment.

After a first listen, I feel that this piece is too creative and too involved for the title "Sonatina" and therefore deserves a more creative name. Also, structurally, I am not entirely sure if it would be considered straight-forward S-A form; maybe a modified version. It comes across as too blatantly sectional with few bridges, no extended phrases, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your form and sectional approach. I just think dropping the title "Sonataina" and replacing it with something else will create a new impession to the piece before even clicking on "play." :) Once I thought of the piece as something other than a Sonatina, I enjoyed it a lot more.

Are you able to play this thing? If so, I would try to record yourself playing it because Finale can't really do much with multiple voices in one line, for example, and I can tell a lot is lost in the recording and I had to use my brain to "hear" parts differently than the audio file played them. If I depend on a recording with Finale, I will copy the file--just for the recording--and I will give each layer its own channel so I can adjust dynamics and articulations independently. It ends up being a mess to read from, but it plays back nicely, which is why I copy the file first. I am talking about sections such as mm.11-46 and mm.354+, for example.

I can't wait to have more time to listen to this again.

Wow man, this was VERY good!

I echo Sonata for a lot of the comments, I too felt like this was not a sonatina. So what if you couldn't finish the other movements in time for the competition, finish them! This would work GREAT as a first movement in a sonata. I feel like this work is very mature in construction and content. Unfortunately I can't view the score while listening because my comp. crashed and I'm on the ol' gateway, but just listening to it gave me the impression I needed.

The only suggestion I have is that it is too heavy. I liked the fast tempo, but I feel some of the lines were drowned out. If you slowed the tempo a bit it would seem more coherent, but then again I liked the tempo that fast. The top melody line at times was lost to me, but it could just be the playback. Can you play this piece? You should record it or find someone who can for a more beneficial performance! The little quibble I had was something that was minor honestly, I really couldn't find much I didn't like. :D

Good work man, you should post more works! This was awesome!! I'll look for your name here in the future, and good luck with the competition, I hope you win :)

Vince

I plan to write a lot more about this piece later, but I am restricted on time at the moment.

After a first listen, I feel that this piece is too creative and too involved for the title "Sonatina" and therefore deserves a more creative name. Also, structurally, I am not entirely sure if it would be considered straight-forward S-A form; maybe a modified version. It comes across as too blatantly sectional with few bridges, no extended phrases, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with your form and sectional approach. I just think dropping the title "Sonataina" and replacing it with something else will create a new impession to the piece before even clicking on "play." :) Once I thought of the piece as something other than a Sonatina, I enjoyed it a lot more.

Are you able to play this thing? If so, I would try to record yourself playing it because Finale can't really do much with multiple voices in one line, for example, and I can tell a lot is lost in the recording and I had to use my brain to "hear" parts differently than the audio file played them. If I depend on a recording with Finale, I will copy the file--just for the recording--and I will give each layer its own channel so I can adjust dynamics and articulations independently. It ends up being a mess to read from, but it plays back nicely, which is why I copy the file first. I am talking about sections such as mm.11-46 and mm.354+, for example.

I can't wait to have more time to listen to this again.

Thank you so much for your input! I definitely agree that sonatina is not a very good title for it; hopefully I'll have something much better by the time I finish the final movements.

I can play this, but not in tempo yet. I will follow your advice and create a separate finale file to use for producing a better mp3. The main theme at the beginning definitely gets lost in the ruckus.

Thanks again for your comments! I really appreciate it. I look forward to any further insights. :)

Hi, good game for your work in overall ! Themes are very nice.

So :

The introduction is well done, but deserve to be a little more developped ?

I don't like a lot your use of the canto at 7 even if it's interessant. As you said, it's chromatic, reminds me a too much used proc

Wow man, this was VERY good!

I echo Sonata for a lot of the comments, I too felt like this was not a sonatina. So what if you couldn't finish the other movements in time for the competition, finish them! This would work GREAT as a first movement in a sonata. I feel like this work is very mature in construction and content. Unfortunately I can't view the score while listening because my comp. crashed and I'm on the ol' gateway, but just listening to it gave me the impression I needed.

The only suggestion I have is that it is too heavy. I liked the fast tempo, but I feel some of the lines were drowned out. If you slowed the tempo a bit it would seem more coherent, but then again I liked the tempo that fast. The top melody line at times was lost to me, but it could just be the playback. Can you play this piece? You should record it or find someone who can for a more beneficial performance! The little quibble I had was something that was minor honestly, I really couldn't find much I didn't like. :D

Good work man, you should post more works! This was awesome!! I'll look for your name here in the future, and good luck with the competition, I hope you win :)

Vince

Dude, thank you for your comments! I apologize for my delay in replying; school has been crazy these last few weeks.

I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about the heaviness; this was definitely an unfortunate effect of the midi playback. Normally I go through midi files note by note adjusting the velocity, but I lost my copy of Reason, and haven't gotten a replacement yet.

I would be able to play this piece if I put the time into it. Current school and musical obligations prevent me from doing so, but I have at least 2 good pianists interested in performing it, in which case I would be able to get a good recording.

And, as far as the competition goes... I just received an email that I took first in my state, and that my piece is being sent to the division competition. I then read further and found that I won because there were no other entries in my state in my category. So... kind of a backhanded victory, but I'll take it.

Thank you so much for your kind words. I was pretty nervous putting something up here for the world to see, so I'm glad that at someone liked it. :)

Cheers,

Cooper

[quote name='Rapha

Rapha

First off good luck in the competition. Regardless of whether or not you win, you have every right to be proud of this one. It is well thought out and flows nicely.

Competitions are rarely decided based on which entry is the "best" one. There are so many factors involved that you should never concern yourself with winning or losing, just getting the right piece in your mind into the fray and let the others decide and worry about its fate.

Well done

Ron

I love it! 10/10.

Hey, did you go to Interlochen? I remember your name from Zae Munn's composition class. I was a composition major two summers ago.

-Cool piece, sweet modulations, great ideas -m.452 for courtesy, change clef to bass -Clean up your score, space it out more, there are few run overs (m.240)

Good luck on the competition

btw, I am not sure if you remember me but I was the boy with the dred locks

Wow, I can't comment much on this piece because it's very brilliant, except to say that it is very, very brilliant. When I have time I will listen to it again and try to tell you what I think of it in detail, but overall I love it. And did what you said before mean you won the competition? I'm sure you deserved it, well done, you are very talented.

(EDIT: Just one thought though; I really felt the ending needed a slightly extended coda - my brain kept hearing the final bars of Ireland piano concerto in Eb 1st mov. ringing after your piece had ended, so maybe it could do with 4-8 bars of something grabbing and evocative of the whole piece to end with. I will post again tomorrow when I'm not falling asleep - I want to think more about this piece, it's so interesting and wonderful.)

*bump*

Just wanted to tell you guys... I won the Southwest United States Music Teachers National Association Composition Competition with this piece!