Preface

This sonata is my first serious look at writing in an authentic Classical style. It opens with a traditional Allegro movement, followed by a sweet Andante, finishing with a lively rondo marked Presto. Thematic material is shared throughout all three movements, truly incorporating them into a single work.

Although there are some devices used that seem alien to the period, such as the metric modulation in the finale and cyclical themes used throughout the work, most of the Sonata is inspired by the works of Mozart and Beethoven. This piece is dedicated to Hayley Glickfeld, whose sweetness and love for Mozart inspired me to go back to the classics.

Improvised Cadenza Towards the end of the third movement is a measure marked Cadenza, but no cadenza is present and there’s nothing in the appendix. During a live performance, this section is completely improvised. In the score for distribution, I’ll have to write three or four optional valid cadenzas to use for those without theory and composing skills, but this section is intentionally left blank to give me and other pianists an opportunity to practice improvisation in a classical style. Every performance of this is different, which makes this piece very unique and fun.

Thematic Usage

The two themes in the Allegro movement reappear in the Andante and Presto movements in different forms, truly linking the three movements into a single, cohesive work. Theme I reappears as the secondary theme of the Andante with harmonic and phrasing adjustments to make it fit into 4/4 time from the original 3/4 time.

The slower Theme II of the first movement becomes the lively rondo theme of the finale, straighted-out rhythmically to fit snugly into cut time. It reappears in its original 3/4 form as the final rondo episode, quoting the first movement before the coda, which closes the sonata nicely by quoting Theme I.

• The composer blog might be interesting for a few people, but I doubt that everyone wants to hear analytical articles about music.
• If I write personal thoughts, a composer blog, site updates, and new events all in one blog post, you can’t look up blog posts by category.
• With everything in one giant post, it’s simply too much to read all at once.

So here’s the new plan: I’m going to post whenever I have anything to say, and send out a single newsletter on Friday mornings. The weekly digest emails will contain links and summaries to all articles written within the week. This way, I can update as often as I want without feeling like a spammer, and you can read only what interests you. Bare with me here as I have no experience with journalism, writing, or communicating with human beings.

Why music is important

When I was in high school, I didn’t listen to or play any music whatsoever. And I was truly miserable at the time; Miserable for totally different reasons, but still miserable. On a whim (mostly to fit in and relate to other kids), I started listening to some music on the radio. At first it was neat. Then I couldn’t figure out why the same song I’d heard about forty times is still played every hour. After a while, it started driving me crazy. It made me want to smash my radio into pieces. Basically, that turned out to be a dead-end.

Not long after that experiment, I looked back to my childhood for some reason and remembered my brother had always listened to Shostakovich string quartets. I grabbed some classical music and a little jazz from the internet and my local library and started listening. Unlike what I’d been listening to before, as I listened more and more to classical music, it grew on me instead of forcing me to drop-kick my radio out the nearest window. After listening to this stuff for a while, I picked up on a few things: Throughout a single piece, it can go through several different and emotions and different feelings. There are little melodic lines and harmonies in the background that you only pick up the fifth time you listen. In a piece over twenty minutes long, there’s still a perfect structure that holds it all together. In short, this music had some real depth.

I’ve always been drawn to the craft of things, so I wanted to figure out how this “classical music thing” worked. That’s when I took up the piano and started looking through some Ravel and Rachmaninoff scores. After a while, I figured out how keys worked (like C major or B♭ minor), how chords were constructed, proper fingering on the piano, the different instruments and how they sounded, how to write basic rhythms, etc. As I learned more, I discovered there was so much more that I didn’t know. Music quickly changed from a hobby into an obsession.

One day, I suddenly realized something: there would never be an end to music. Something about it is mysterious and unexplainable, yet it’s somehow constructed rationally like some exquisite piece of architecture. I’ll never know how writing certain notes on paper can bring people to tears or cause them to burst with joy, but somehow music can do this. Better yet, I’ll never run out of new music to play.

However, the most important thing I realized was that while I played the piano, listened to new music, and tried to solve the mystery of its emotional power, I felt happy and fulfilled. If I really dedicated my life to music, every day of my life would be fulfilling, without end. Since then, there’s been no turning back; I’ve been cursed to spend the rest of my days as a musician.

So why is music important? It’s easy to spend every day going to work, eating dinner at home, relaxing with a drink, going to bed, and repeating the process for the rest of your life. It’s a safe way to live, but we’re human beings with a potential to be creative and do great things. Music is good for the mind, the soul, and, for us instrumentalists, the body. To be happy, all we need to do is realize our own potential and truly live.

Now, I’m faced with the next problem: making it work in the real world. I’ll get back to you on that one. For now, I’m going to compose, practice, blog, and perform. Hopefully this will be enough for now.

Sonata No. 3

A big part of this blog will be dedicated to stuff I’m writing. Aside from the 24 Impromptus, which began as an exercise for myself, I haven’t written anything seriously for almost two years now. With the new website and concerts around the corner, I can actually get new music out there, so expect lots of that.

Now for some technical details for music nerds like myself: Where Sonata No. 1 is quirky and modern, and Sonata No. 2 sticks to classical tradition, Sonata No. 3 will dabble in impressionism. Form-wise, I’m going to condense sonata form, theme & variations, and rondo form into a single movement. I’ve been looking at Hindemith’s Viola Sonata op. 11, no. 4; after an opening Phantasie movement, the sonata’s main theme appears in the second movement as a Theme & Variations. The Finale acts like a rondo, introducing a new theme, but uses additional variations on the second movement theme as episodic material and the coda. Here’s a great live performance of this sonata.

The entire sonata isn’t mapped out harmonically yet, but so far, I’ve been ripping-off harmonies directly from the Forlane in Le Tombeau de Couperin. Ravel is using min/Maj7 harmonies as unstable tonic chords, and aug/Maj7 chords as dominants. There are some interesting properties about these two chords; they’re inversions of each other and require minimum voice leading to go from one to another. Also, because the augmented triad is symmetrical, it’s easy to do chromatic common-tone modulations: E+(M7) → Am(M7), Fm(M7), or C♯m(M7). Here is the tonal progression Ravel is using in this clip:

[Audio]

Em(M7) E+(M7) | Am(M7) A+(M7) | … F♯m9(♭5) | F♯7(♭9) Bm7 | Em(no3)

Store Update

Okay, so there’s no store right now. That’s a problem. I’ve scheduled some recording for the middle of July and hope to have everything up and running by the beginning of August. The plan is to record Sonatas No. 1 and 2, the Elegy for solo piano, 24 Impromptus, and Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin. With limited recording time, I might not be able to get all of it. What I can’t get during recording will be recorded live at the August 11th concert.

What I’m doing right now

I’m thinking about setting up a hammock in a practice room, because I’ll be living in there for the next two months. With recording less than a month away and the concert in August, I’m hoping to sit at a piano for about six hours every day. That’s still not a Juilliard practice schedule (eight hours a day, I think?), but it’s definitely kicking it up a notch for me.

Oops, I forgot to thank people!

Big thanks to Miles Vancura for donating so much time and effort into getting this website off the ground. Check out his computer consulting company in Madison, WI and give your support:
Ctrl-Shift Inc. Computer Consulting and Repair in Madison, WI

Special thanks to Calvin and Ryan for subscription testing and proof-reading my super-boring blogs and biographical information. Thanks to my family and friends for all their support, both emotionally and financially.