Sonata No. 22 in C Major

Started: 12-11-08, 4:35 PM
Completed: 12-11-08, 5:38 PM
Orange, CA

This sonata is the only one in the set that was written for and expressly dedicated to someone. That someone would be my dear friend and lifelong rival Stephanie. It was my Christmas present to her last year.

Stephanie and I started a very healthy friendship and rivalry in my junior year and her sophomore year of high school. We both have a love for language, so we were instant rivals to be the best writer in our tiny prep school. (She really had no chance in this respect if you ask me! :-p) Later, the rivalry even extended into our college years, as we attended the same university and even shared an English major, though mine was with an emphasis in pre-law, and her was in something insignificant, I'm sure. The rivalry continues to this day, as she believes it's somehow more prestigious to be able to write books than to be able to sue people. There are areas in which we share no common ground, though, and so we're each forced to concede our own inferiority to the other, but in only those respects. She's a much better dancer than I am, for instance. She had a natural talent for it, studied it classically, and hit a semi-professional status with it. It's not really for me to say whether I had any natural talent for music, but in perhaps all other respects, music is for me what dance is for Stephanie. I've never asked Stephanie for dance lessons, but at some point, we thought it would be a great idea for her to learn harpsichord from me. It was a short-lived endeavor.

Two things stand out in my mind when I think of our lessons together. The first is that I'm really a terrible music teacher. She needed instruction from the ground up, so to speak, and I had only one way of explaining everything, and if it failed, there was nothing more I could do to help her understand. It damages me to say this, but she's really a brilliant girl, so the fault was mine when I couldn't even make sense of time signatures to her. The second thing that stands out is that she really can't trill. It was her choice -- not mine -- to play a particular piece with a few ornaments, and she insisted on attempting to play them. Each time she'd try, her hand would lock up in this terrible sort of claw. It was the funniest thing to us both, even though she hit me for laughing.

Anyway, this is all relevant because in wondering what sort of sonata I should write for her, these things came to mind. I thought I'd write a sonata that has time signature changes in each half and is full of ornaments of all sorts. In short, I wanted to write for her a sonata she could neither understand nor play. The obnoxiously long trill at the end is a sort of musical slap in the face.

I'm happy to say that she enjoyed the sonata nonetheless and promised in return to bake a bunch of cookies for me.

I don't eat sweets.

Enjoy!

Sonatas No. 20 and 21 in G Minor

No. 20
Started: 8-15-2008, 8:33 PM
Completed: 8-15-2008, 8:56 PM
Huntington Beach, CA

No. 21
Started: 8-16-2008, 10:11 PM
Completed: 8-16-2008, 10:46 PM
Huntington Beach, CA

I love this pair of sonatas. I love the key of g minor in general. If we assume that when I write a good sonata it's a matter of luck, it's safe to say that I tend to get lucky when I write them in g minor.

The first sonata is pirate music to me. It's all melody, fun to play, and can probably be played at sight even by many early students. Chords in both hands near the end of each section thicken for dynamic and dramatic effect. This is just an absolutely frivolous sonata with no other purpose at all than fun.

The second sonata in this pair is very much like the first in spirit. This was another sonata written to be enjoyed equally by the listener and the player. There's a strong emphasis on melody here again, but there is a much more active left hand part in this sonata than in the former. The ostinato in the bass and even the rhythmic figures in the right hand beginning the second half are a tribute to Soler, who built an entire sonata off this magnificent and sinister sounding figure. Despite the quick pace of this sonata and the high speed broken chords, I don't think that it's difficult to such a degree that it detracts from this sonata's fun factor.

Enjoy!

Sonata No. 19 in G Major

Started: 4-25-2009, 1:17 PM
Completed: 4-25-2009, 1:45 PM
Newport Beach, CA

I've written out musical ideas in some very strange places. It's never really happened, but I have this fear that I'll lose an idea if I don't write it down within a reasonable period of time after imagining it. My friends might argue that I'm very much one, but I think I'm only somewhat of a clean freak. Either way, I have a big aversion to writing on myself, so you'll never find me scribbling ideas onto my palm or my arm, but I have written on a number of dinner napkins, loose envelopes, deposit slips, etc. This particular sonata was actually written on my iPhone. I went bed and table shopping with my mom at Ligne Roset, and at some point I fell completely out of the loop and it ended up being my mom and the store rep on one side of the store and me in a chair on the other. In my boredom, I came up with this little sonata.

This is an easy sonata from a technical standpoint, and there's nothing overly remarkable about in terms of its composition either. It's just a straightforward beginner or intermediate level sonata.

I guess in a sense it paid to be stuck off in a corner for forty minutes or so. (And I actually liked the chair so much I went home with one just like it.)

Enjoy!

Sonatas No. 17 and 18 in C Minor

No. 17
Started: 6-23-09, 5:59 PM
Completed: 6-23-09, 6:44 PM
Huntington Beach, CA

No. 18
Started: 6-24-09, 2:32 PM
Completed: 6-24-09, 3:01 PM
Huntington Beach, CA

These two c minor sonatas were completed only a few months ago and probably comprise my favorite pair in the set of 30.

I was pretty adventurous in the first sonata in the pair. There is a bunch going on here. The opening and closing sections of each half have a bunch of mordents in the bass much more common in the French school than the Iberian one, but I think there's little else French to be found here. I happen to love traditional American circus music, and there's s some wacky bounciness in the bass to that effect before the first half ends. The sonata ends with two ascending arpeggi leading to a single falling one.

The second sonata in the set is a furiously paced Spanish-style sonata that probably sounds a lot harder to play than it really is. The figure I use to modulate involves momentarily overlapping the hands and is a lot of fun to execute. There are mordents in this sonata, too, but this time in the right hand. I use them to insert a little break before a quick cascade closing each half.

Enjoy!

Sonata No. 16 in D Minor

The manuscript for this very early sonata in d minor isn't dated, but it didn't come very long after my first sonata, so it would be a bit over a decade old also.

The device I had in mind when writing this sonata was clearly rapidly repeating notes. At the close of each section, there are some jumps in the left hand sort of similar to Scarlatti K.12, only moving in the opposite direction before landing deep in the bass. The closing figures are an extended play on the opening figures that momentarily sound two voices at once (in an octave).

Enjoy!

Sonata No. 15 in C Minor

Started: 12-27-1998, 8:16 PM
Completed: 12-27-1998, 9:09 PM
London, England

This is another simple unpaired sonata in c minor.

The are changes in rhythm in the cruxes, and the closing passages feature very player-friendly hand crossings that won't scare off even beginners.

There is really not much else to be said about this sonata except that I hope you

Enjoy!

Sonata No. 14 in D Minor

Started: 1-07-1999, 2:14 AM
Completed: 1-07-1999, 3:03 AM
Edinburgh, Scotland

In this set, there are more sonatas in d minor than in any other key, and my friend Justin is particularly fond of this one. He flattered me by telling me that if he ever decides to learn to play piano or harpsichord, he'll want to learn this piece first.

This is a fairly basic sonata that opens with broken octaves in the treble and closes each section with broken octaves in the bass. I was going for something Spanish-sounding here again, and I hope this will be particularly obvious in the closing sections of each half.

Melody drives this sonata along, and it falls very easily under the hands as well, so it should be entertaining for both the listener and the player.

Enjoy!