1st Movement Sketched

Back to the string quartet last seen three posts and seven months ago.

A transition has been added to the first subject that takes its lead from the eighth-note figure in the viola:



The transition rises to the 2nd subject, in A major, which includes some chromatic passages borrowed and modified from the beginning:



There is no coda before, as originally intended. Maybe I’ll insert one later, maybe not. It sounds to my ear a bit out of balance, but that is not necessarily bad.

The development works on the 1st subject, starting with the viola and the first two bars in a minor. The 1st violin throws in its four pieces of eight as comments, causing the viola to change its tune, then everyone chimes in until the viola wraps up the section with the 2nd bar.



The 2nd violin takes the 2nd bar to C major and noodles its way to the third bar with some echoes from the first fiddle.



Then the cello takes over, putting the 3rd bar into G major with some conviction, which the 1st violin softly echoes on high, from which everyone tumbles down



to the viola and the 4th and 5th bars in D major. The viola then launches into some noodling of its own for a short trip to b minor and a handoff to the 2nd violin.



The 2nd violin decides there has been enough noodles of late and takes bars 5 and 6 from the 1st subject and spins some variants:



The cello likes that idea and takes the 6th bar, now in f# minor, tosses it around on the way to the 7th bar.



The 1st violin, having allowed the others to dominate the development, states the opening chromatic figure on A major, passes it to the cello, who hands off to the 2nd fiddle, who returns the passage to the 1st to complete a dominant seventh and start the recap.

A Variant on a Variation

Following my friend’s advice, the piano part has been cleaned up a bit, with a short intro added for good measure.

A Variation

Long ago, before there were computers to distract me, I played the violin. I pulled it out of the closet recently, got it tuned up, bought a copy of Suzuki volume 1, and started playing again. For many weeks, it sounded awful and the neighbors are no doubt thankful I close the windows before putting bow to string.

As a diversion, I wrote this:





It’s a variant on one of the tunes in the Suzuki book, which makes it relatively easy for me to play. I took it to a friend of mine who plays piano, and for the first time in a couple of decades someone else heard me fiddle. She did not clasp hands to ears, but did say the piano writing was a bit clumsy and complicated for such a short and simple tune.

Thematic Material

The first subject uses two strings of notes:


and


I interleaved the two sets and fiddled with the octaves to get this:


Adjusting the rhythm to something more interesting produced these two and a half bars:


Overlapping on the b-flat, the next three bars place the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th notes of the interleaved string at the beginning of each bar:


Two extension bars follow, ending with A – D – B – E straight from the string:


The whole is thus:


For harmonization, I borrowed La Folia’s base line, transposed to D


resulting in this straight-forward opening:


The cello overlaps a repetition of the theme, passes it to the viola, who passes it up to the second violin, then returns it to the viola, all without commentary (that will come later):

String Quartet in D Minor – The Plan

This will be in three movements, the first in sonata form. The first subject thematic material will do the usual tonic to dominant, followed be an unstable transition more or less in or on the dominant. Also, the second subject material will be, as usual, in the dominant, with a short coda to bridge to the development. The development will be based either on the first subject alone or in combination with new themes; the second subject won’t show up.

The second subject won’t appear in the recapitulation either. After the first subject, there will be a stable transition to an expanded version of the exposition’s coda.

The second movement will be either ternary or rondo form, with the “A” section being a variation of the first subject. The contrasting section (or sections) will need to be completely new thematic material, or at least sound completely new.

The final movement will also be in sonata form, with its first subject being a variation of the original first subject, making the whole work a kind of variation on a theme and variations form. The second subject reappears for the first time since the opening movement, more or less intact. Towards the end of the development, the first subject will appear on the tonic as a false recapitulation while the real recap will ignore the first subject all together. The second subject finally gets its time in the tonic, and a coda will probably wrap things up.

Sonata in G – Third Movement Complete

The second half of the trio, starting in bar 48, intertwines a couple of lines, maintaining the overall melancholy mood.

Listen here.



It stays in A until the last two measures (61 and 62); a bit of baroquishness. The first part of the trio is then repeated without repeats, if you take my meaning.

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.