Sonata in E-Flat Major

My first piano sonata, consisting of four movements, in classical style.

Sonata in E-Flat Major

Very stylistic, reminiscent of Haydn with your modulation to minor keys and sectional composition. Early traces of thematic development, but used in strict sonata form. Your first subject and second subject are strong and hold on their own right without either being more prominent than the other.

Your development of ideas is very creative yet short leaving me thinking, “hang on, I want more”. Influence of Beethoven’s colour, and Mozart’s decoration. Your are good at what you do, I am another lover of writing classical music in older traditions, when it was written because it sounded good, rather than for the sake of doing something new.

Some of your harmonies is too colourful for classical tradition similarly with the dynamic contrast, but after all we are in the 21st century so why not. Your slow movement is defiantly the weakest in the sonata. It just does not scream the same creative energy that the others do, this has nothing to do with tempo, the Ideas are very limited, and don’t seem to move as fluidly as the other movements.

Over all, this is a great work, that young Composers should be proud to premier and host on its server. Defiantly going on my favourites list.

Very nice work! I would really like to see a score of this though so that I can actually give a much more thorough review of this work. An audio file just doesn't afford a proper review - know what I mean?

Thanks for the comments :-)

->Musicmacman, I can understand the feeling of waiting and expecting more - there were so many ideas initially when I first started but I felt that it wasn't as cohesive as the final product turned out. The Largo movement or adagio 2nd movements are always the hardest for me to right when writing in sonata form. Check out my Symphony in C-Minor, I believe it's more than 8 minutes long. It was the last of the four movements that I wrote and it took me the longest. Overall, thanks for the comments and criticism. I will definitely work on fleshing out my themes and working more on development.

->jawoodruff - I'm glad you liked the piece. Interesting story: When I started to write more multi-movements works, I ditched the idea of separate files and going ahead using one document for the full piece. I do have a score for this sonata but I made a slight mistake when I started working on the G-minor second movement. For some reason while changing keys and tempos the key change accidentally went all the way back to measure 1 (into the first movement) SO ... while the first movement is in the key of E-flat Major, the key signature reads 2 flats instead of 3. I'm going to go ahead and post that version so if you want to take a look at the score you may do so.

I think you did a nice job capturing the classical style. Honestly, I am not a huge fan of writing strictly in an old style, but it is good practice to imitate other composers. I am not familiar with your other work to know if you always compose in this style. Even though I would like to see some more original ideas, I must hand it to you that my attention was able to hold on and listen with interest throughout...a good thing. It is just that I have heard so many classical piano pieces that when someone writes a new one, I normally don't find it appealing. I think you did a great job at writing well in the style here.