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Piano Sonata in E-flat minor


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I am new to this forum. I have worked on and off for the last 2 months or so on this sonata. You can view my score at : https://musescore.com/user/27866262/scores/6096785 

Feedback is welcome 🙂 This is the first piano sonata I have composed and am satisfied with, after multiple attempts. I have written it in a classical/romantic period style. I hope you guys like it. 

 

I'm still not sure about whether to include the fugue in the third movement development. I like the fugue but it goes way too long and the development with it clocks around 11 minutes 😕.

There's also meant to be way more pedal, such as in the arpeggio sections. 

Edited by Charley Shi
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It's over an hour long with the repeats. That's not very practical if you want to perform this unless this is the only thing in the concert lol. Why the repeats, too? They don't seem to have any function other than to make the whole thing much longer. You would be much better serve to actually write the part you want to repeat again with some variation instead of putting a repeat bar, specially if the part that you're repeating is over 2 or 3 minutes long.

 

I think when you have so much STUFF, the best approach is to go and see what you can actually remove. There's simply way too much material that's way too different, it almost seems like you could've as well written two entire sonatas with what's just in the first movement. But seriously, take things out, take everything that you can out and leave only what's absolutely necessary. This seems like you spent two months writing and never actually stopped!

 

The ending cadences are really strange too. Like, measure 402-403 on the first movement, unless you really intend the piece to not really end, that's really strange. It makes the next part seem like part of the movement or something that should be played attacca. No, but seriously, what's this?

 

wtf1.JPG.8ebb04e239085f0f0bd0b2cbcd9f55b7.JPG

That entire thing ends in the Ab minor chord. You just literally shoved the Eb minor chord after it as if to say "Look I'm in the tonic at the end" but that segment actually ends in Ab minor, if you just repeat the Ab chord in the next two measures with the fermata you'd have a pretty normal end. If you wanted to make Ab -> Eb, you could do Ab major 7 -> Eb minor, because it shares notes, but that's still not a Dominant -> Tonic relationship (in fact Eb minor is nothing to Ab minor, harmonically. And no, there's no such thing as minor dominants in a cadence, they're modulation targets if anything.) In fact, Eb minor has nothing to do with that whole bar really.

 

What's even worse is you actually cadence (properly) into Ab minor!

wtf2.JPG.da62c1eee6d9418011f3643e775b618b.JPG

So what the hell? I mean, maybe it's totally something you wanted to do, but I get the feeling it isn't because the entire rest of the first movement is filled with bog-standard T-D-T cadence structures. It's really bizarre you'd want to totally avoid it for no reason suddenly at the end.

 

And then the other movement after that has also are really strange ending.

wtf3.JPG.4d911a3deddb14671fb19a8bdf1e9e14.JPG

I don't know if you're trying to avoid being "cliche," but what's up with that? You're doing t -> tP -> s ->  s65 -> t, but, y'know, could've used SOMETHING with a b#, a dim G# major, some kind of suspension, hell even the s -> t could use a little more than just the added 6th. The little bit that comes after has the B#, but it's weird hearing it there as an alternating note since those can usually be non-harmony compliant. Again, because you kept using pretty standard harmony during the rest of the movement, the ending feels like it was cut and pasted from something else entirely.

 

Anyway, yeah, cut stuff. Seriously, cut stuff, trim this down to 30 minutes (without repetitions!) AT MOST, please. You can use the stuff you cut for new pieces! Many, in fact!

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Thanks for the feedback. I think the time I've spent on it now that I realise is just over one month. It's felt like a long time lol. About the plagal iv-i cadence ending the first movement, I was trying to avoid being 'cliche' there with it. I'll write a coda (most likely in Presto) to it in the tonic, leading in with iv-V-i in tonic.  For the second movement, I will replace that series of chords with something based on the motif of the Scherzo. I don't know if you have listened to the Adagio, but I will consider removing the exposition repeat and the extension of the development. I can use the fugue for a prelude and fugue maybe. 

 

BTW Your profile picture matches your comment so well xD

Edited by Charley Shi
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