The six performers were myself, on organ, piano and voice; Charmaine Bacon, on flutes and piano, Andrew Rampton, singing; Michael McKay, playing piano and singing; Nathan Poole with his violin; and James Robertson with a French Horn. Thirteen pieces were demonstrated, to the delight and joy of the audience (and my own!).
The first piece to show is the Sonatina Arguably in A Major, for violin and piano. Michael McKay took up the piano part, while Nathan Poole played the violin. The Sonatina is in two movements: Allegretto gracioso, with Overtones (Apolitical); and Something Like a Rondo. The structure is fairly straightforward, with the first movement using a simple ABAB-type form, and the second being, well, something like a rondo.
Points of interest:
- The first theme of the first movement uses played overtones on the piano to colour an otherwise fairly ordinary accompaniment, while the second theme uses a layered canon idea.
- The second movement, while still in A Major, never comes to rest on a tonic chord until 75 measures in, after the restatement of the secondary theme, and the first actual authentic cadence doesn't happen until twenty measures later.
- The second movement's first theme is derived from the first movement's second theme; the second movement's second theme is derived from the first movement's first theme.
- Both movements in the recording are slower than I had envisioned them; this does not mean that I disagree with Michael and Nathan's interpretation. Ideally, in my mind, the piece should run a hair under five minutes.
The opening. Eight bars of introduction, and start of the first theme in the violin
The transition in to the layered second theme of the first movement:
The opening two pages of the Rondo, showing both themes.
Sonatina Arguably in A Major by Mike Cutler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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