Sonata in G – Third Movement Trio

The aural poke in the era is gone; no more trill on the high D in measure 29. And the trill in the next bar has been replaced by an upper mordant, echoing the end of the second subject, recapitulated, in the opening movement (lower mordent, upper mordent, trill). The trio is turning out to have the triste character with which the minute started. Instead of being in the dominant (A major), it is in the parallel minor (D minor). So far it touches briefly on A major, but seems more interested in A minor. The contrapuntal character of the second half of the minute is also present in the second half of the trio. You may also notice the motive at the beginning of the trio (A-F-E-D) is first tightened up (A-G-F-E), then progressively turned upward in bars 40 – 42 and briefly leaves the ground in 43 (I think the aviation term is ground effect).

Sonata in G – Third Movement Continued...

This next part of the minuet is too short, but it is a start. The first two measures are contrapuntal and, I think, a bit muddy, so they will get some work. Measures 25-27 started with single notes in the right hand that got lost amid the rumble of the bass, so I added the next-higher chord tone. Pianists, one of which I am not, would perhaps frown on the high pianissimo trill in measure 29; my Pentium Processed Pianist that plays this for me certainly can’t get it to sound any better than an aural poke in the ear.

Sonata in G – Third Movement

Skipping ahead to the third movement, I took the skeleton of the opening movement’s first subject, G-A-B-D, compressed it, then off to the dances. The tempo started out rather slow. Combined with the slant towards minor chords, this was for a while a Minuet Triste. But the second section on the dominant wanted to go faster and pulled the whole to a typical tempo for a minuet.



The second section started out as a normal 8-bar phrase. As I played it over and over on the keyboard, the transition from the eight-note quarter note rhythm to flowing eighth notes get on hitting a bump. The flowing eighth notes initially started on the second beat of the measure as in measure 11, but after a bar wanted to start on the first beat. So measure 12 switched to common time.

Sonata in G – Development

The holes in the development are now filled in.



The modulation from b minor to E major is smoother (and longer).



There is a bass line for the sections in E major and A major.



Click here to hear the completed first movement.

Sonata in G – Exposition, 1st Subject

Finally, the beginning.




The transition is shorter than I originally thought would be necessary, but I think it sets up the 2nd subject as a dissonance from a key-relationship point of view. The 2nd subject cannot be the end of the piece; it must resolve to G major.



The repeats, by the way, are there because the piece is short and rather compact, and also because my skill at spinning long lines of coherent music are under developed right now.

Sonata in G – Exposition, 2nd Subject

Working backwards from the recapitulation, here is the 2nd subject in the exposition. To give it a sense of dissonance, the consequent phrase is seventh chords. It may be a case of overemphasis, but then the sonata is intended to be explicit in these matters (or so I’ve read).



The consequent phrase is repeated softly to emphasize the emphasis (whisper and people listen).

Sonata in G – Finished Draft of the Recapitulation

Here is the complete first draft of the recapitulation (starting with one bar from the end of the development.




The Alberti bass in the second subject lends an air of calm (to my ear) as do the ornamental mordents (lower and upper) and trills.



The coda starts out as a soft echo of the 2nd subject, but builds through fragmentation and repetition of bits of the second subject, and a crescendo, to the end.

Sonata in G – Beginning of Recapitulation

The recap starts with the 1st subject, which has a similar but busier motive structure as the 2nd subject. The plan is to eventually have the 2nd subject in the exposition appear as a dissonance compared to the first, with perhaps a lengthy transition to highlight the difference. The development would take the listener from that dissonance back to the first subject followed directly by the second in the tonic and, if I can pull it off, a resolution. The whole movement is wrapped up with a coda. Here I am learning from Rosen’s “Sonata Forms”, third chapter, where he describes the difference between sonata and binary forms: “all the material played in the dominant is consequently conceived as dissonant, i.e., requiring resolution by a later transposition to the tonic.” (page 25)

Sonata in G

I’m starting this sonata with the development, which is sketched out below. It starts in D major with what I think will be second subject material, then modulates through b minor to B major.



It takes the circle of fifths back to G major. The sixteenth-note figure plays a prominent role without alteration except transposition. The repeated quarter note on beats three and four in measure 19 morph into repeated eight notes with an initial jump down.



I stole the idea of a repeated eighth-note bass line from Haydn’s sonata H.XVI:1, Andante movement. It helps the rhythmic drive of the sixteenth notes in the right hand to bring the music to the recapitulation.