Sonata allegro exercise

I wrote this piece over the past two months as a sort of challenge to myself and as a demonstration for a few other people on writing pieces out of short themes. I think it's structurally a lot more complicated than typical sonata allegros, but I kind of got carried away (especially in the recapitulation). Honestly, it sounds to me more like the scherzo (third movement) of a four movement sonata rather than the first movement, and I kind of tried following the scherzo form a bit by introducing some new material in the development section.

Hi @mossy84!

I personally find this a really successful attempt to try a sonata allegro and keep the opening motive present in almost every part of the movement. I agree with you that the movement fits more as the Scherzo movement (lots of Scherzo movements are in Sonata form tho).

I really enjoy the harmonic progression in the piece which keeps surprising me. In the 2nd subject you start with C major and then modulate to C minor in b.34, which is common in Baroque sonatas, and I think you will do the normal practice by returning to C major again afterwards. But no you modulate a semitone upward and ends the exposition in C sharp minor! That's a real surprise to me. But with the exposition repeat isn't weird at all. You do the same for the recapitulation, first moves to G sharp minor and then returning to tonic A minor, very clever and surprising to do so. The modulation in development section is really colorful and you move as far as to F sharp major and soothingly returns to A minor. 

Thx for sharing!

Henry