Sonata for Piano and Alto Saxophone

Hi everyone!

This is my sonata for piano and alto saxophone, which I composed over this summer as a birthday gift for my mom (born on Halloween!)

Below you'll find my own formal analysis of the work to help parse a piece that even I find a little bit dense. The analysis will focus on the most complex movement, the third, so if a more thorough explanation of the first two movements is wanted I'll edit this post to include theme here. Please bear in mind that there are passages in this piece which are meant to be played completely freely from a rhythmic standpoint, and MIDI simply can't simulate that.

Thank you for listening and providing your thoughts on this piece, it's something I spent a lot of time and energy on.

Analysis:

My Sonata for Piano and Saxophone in Eb major is cast in three movements. The last two are played without a break. The first movement is in a free form based on tempo transformation. (It’s essentially the form of the third movement of Brahms’ second symphony).

The second movement, Romanza, is a simple, ternary form in Bb with an F minor middle section. It’s very beautiful but harmonically slightly troubled,  somewhat unstable. The movement plays without a break into the third.

The third movement is in a freely reworked version of sonata form. There is a slow, dramatic introduction for the piano alone which moves through various keys from F# minor to Eb major. Then follows “Cavatina I” a ternary form subsection. The A section of this is a pastoral tune in Ab minor over a pedal Ab. This then gives way to the B section, a modally ambiguous march. Then the A section returns. This gives way to “Fuga I” which is a fugue in Gb major over a Db pedal point (lasting almost the entire three and a half minute long fugue). This fugue is more dramatic than rhetorical, climaxing with an episode in Gb minor which is subverted into “Cavatina II”. This is the same music as Cavatina I, but formally inverted (the A section becomes the B section and vice versa). The march is heard in a more ornamental form for the piano alone. Then the pastoral tune, this time in Gb major over a pedal fifth in the bass of the piano. The march returns and leads directly into “Fuga II” This fugue uses as its subject a transformed version of the subject of Fuga I, itself a transformation and combination of the first movement’s “seed motive” (Eb - C - G - Bb - F - Eb) and the pastoral tune. This fugue is highly metrically complex, representing a transition and conflict between the considerable amount of 6/8 music, and the common time of the section that follows. The final passage of the finale is a chorale. The chorale introduces new melodic material (actually built from intervalic material from the introduction, which is a transformation of the first movement seed motive), but the harmony under it was carefully constructed: the entire finale is an elaboration on the harmonic progression (F# minor - D# diminished - Ab minor - Eb minor - Gb major - Bb minor - Eb major) heard in the introduction of the movement. The chorale is just another restatement of that harmonic progression, reaffirming the journey back to Eb major for the third time in the movement. The chorale-coda also gradually introduces a new rhythmic cell which crystallizes over the course of the passage, resulting in the final Eb major chords of the movement being sounded in the following rhythm: eighth note - dotted quarter - half note - dotted quarter - eighth note (- half note). This is a rhythmic palindrome, mirroring the harmonic palindrome which comprises the structure of the sonata as a whole.