Violin Sonata in B-flat major, 3rd movement, Scherzo: Allegro Vivace

Hi! This is the third movement of my Violin Sonata in B flat major, commissioned by and dedicated to Arjuna Clark @expert21. It's a Scherzo not only feature a lot of the ARJUNA motive, but also some references on Beethoven and my friend Peter's themes. I find this movement really funny! It's set in F major and have a modulatory end, as both suggested by Arjuna. The audio is again made by @Thatguy v2.0.

Here is the score and YT video of the movement:

Violin Sonata in B-flat major 3rd mov.pdf

0:00 Scherzo Proper. Use a lot of ARJUNA motive right from the start. First big change is a modulation to A flat major, then a random pause in 0:35, which is a technique I love to use ever since I was accused of having used it in my 3rd Piano Sonata lol. The music then modulates to E major, where I play with @PeterthePapercomPoser’s theme of his Postulde in Suite for Strings. This acts at some kinds of advertisement as I would be using this theme in my next composition. It ends firmly in F major, but then modulates unexpectedly in D-flat major.

1:22 Trio. As you can see from the tempo marking of "Largo molto very ultra religioso", you know it's a joke. I play with Beethoven's theme in his op.135 slow movement here, even though personally I worship this piece and his late quartets A LOT. I have it juxtaposed with the quick scherzo ARJUNA passages for funny montage effect. At the end I just quote the awakening call from Beethoven's op.110 Piano Sonata 3rd movement, again as a joke, as a wake up call for nothing here.

2:39 Repetition of Scherzo Proper. Though at the end it rather modulates to B-flat major, the global tonic major of the piece, to achieve an attaca to the final movement of the work.

Here are the previous movements posted on YC forum:

1st movement:

2nd movement:

Here are the references for the movement:

Peter’s Theme:

Beethoven’s op.135 slow movement theme:

Hope you enjoy and leave some comments!

Henry

Very snappy light piece...and of course gotta love those random pauses haha. Also, very cool motif that you use throughout (4 sixteenth notes followed by an 8th note). The ending though, it makes me yearn for a cadence!

Yet another very melodically accessible installment in your Violin Sonata!  It's very easy to get sucked into listening to it over and over because of its accessibility, which happened to me multiple times when I listened on this page and then opened the YT link.  And the piece is seamless structurally despite having the much more important (imo) melodic coherence than structural coherence.  It's also amazing that you manage to smoothly quote my Postlude theme from my Suite for Strings!  It's quite easy to identify and I love hearing this little Easter egg that you included in this sonata!  The piece is definitely scherzo-like, random pauses included (actually the random pauses enhance the scherzo-like atmosphere as they prepare the anticipation for a sudden surprising restarting of the momentum.  I also love the modulations to Ab major, Db major and Eb minor.  The piece is very harmonically adventurous!  Great job and thanks for sharing!

Hi Henry.

This reminds me of Haydn and Mozart. Definitely sounds Late Classical to my ear.

Congrats on finishing this major work!

Alex

8 hours ago, Alex Weidmann said:

This reminds me of Haydn and Mozart. Definitely sounds Late Classical to my ear.

Congrats on finishing this

Haha thx! Yeah I try to be playful here which sounds quite Haydnesque.

It's not finished! There will be a fourth and final movement and stay tuned!

Henry

On 7/20/2025 at 10:21 AM, chopin said:

Very snappy light piece...and of course gotta love those random pauses haha. Also, very cool motif that you use throughout (4 sixteenth notes followed by an 8th note). The ending though, it makes me yearn for a cadence!

Yeah that’s the same Arjuna motive throughout! And there will be the final movement which I post today!

On 7/20/2025 at 10:40 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

Yet another very melodically accessible installment in your Violin Sonata!  It's very easy to get sucked into listening to it over and over because of its accessibility, which happened to me multiple times when I listened on this page and then opened the YT link.

Nice! I really wanna try to write more accessible music and I think this one is a good try!

On 7/20/2025 at 10:40 AM, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

It's also amazing that you manage to smoothly quote my Postlude theme from my Suite for Strings! 

Yeah an advertisement on what I’m writing!

You know, quite a bit of difference in us as composers, and in our respective violin sonatas.  I am in Virginia, you are in Hong Kong.  You are an excellent pianist, I can hardly play the thing and have only mastered fretless bass guitar!  Both your Bb sonata and my C major sonata have a lot of Beethoven in them, and I don't know how much time you took on your sonata, but I dashed my C major off in 13 days, not a sketch, not a correction, right onto paper (not into Noteflight), and I sure didn't work every day or every hour of every day!  Parts of yours, anyway, seem like you took a bit more care...

haha thx!

13 minutes ago, Churchcantor said:

You are an excellent pianist, I can hardly play the thing and have only mastered fretless bass guitar!

In this video the audio is generated by my bro @Thatguy v2.0, but it's playable for me haha.

14 minutes ago, Churchcantor said:

Both your Bb sonata and my C major sonata have a lot of Beethoven in them, and I don't know how much time you took on your sonata, but I dashed my C major off in 13 days, not a sketch, not a correction, right onto paper (not into Noteflight), and I sure didn't work every day or every hour of every day!  Parts of yours, anyway, seem like you took a bit more care...

As long as I remember, I took 2 actually composing days for each of the first 3 movements of the Sonata, and took two weeks (around 7 days?) for the last movement. I usually work really slow on my writing, like I took 2.5 yrs for my String Sextet and 6 yrs for my Clarinet Quintet!

Henry

I'm getting around this morning to listening to the whole thing.  You do seem to work out motives better than I do; I just vomit it out!

So you wrote your sonata pretty fast too?  I took 4 months on my symphony-concerto for electric guitar and orchestra, but that's a symphony!  I still didn't make a gazillion sketches like Herr Beethoven. 

14 minutes ago, Churchcantor said:

You do seem to work out motives better than I do; I just vomit it out!

Yeah I think writing with motives is probably the easiest way for me to write! You can just copy and paste and also have coherence haha!

11 minutes ago, Churchcantor said:

So you wrote your sonata pretty fast too?

Yeah this one is fast, since I consider this Sonata an easy piece to work on!

12 minutes ago, Churchcantor said:

I still didn't make a gazillion sketches like Herr Beethoven. 

I seldom make sketches too!

Cool!  Beethoven is Beethoven, but it can be good to just have it come naturally as well.