Jonathan Shaw

     This little piano composition was during my second year at college. It was a practice piece for writing in the form of a sonatina as one of the composition briefs for that year was to write a sonatina.

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     Ultimately, I chose a different composition brief (as you will soon find out) but this piece is nevertheless enjoyable. The persistent rhythmic motif is particularly lovely, although I question how playable it truly is. The development is good fun with the juggling canon between lower and upper voice whilst maintaining the rhythmic motif. At first, this rhythmic motif is also mirrored every two bars, but I soon gave up on that idea after it was too tricky a puzzle to incorporate alongside a canon. The development ends with a determined bass-line that continues rising, until the recapitulation appears with the exposition material.

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     As to how successful this piece was at sonatina form, well, that is certainly up for debate – but I know it dances quite far from a sonatina! Nevertheless, it is a rather charming piece that I am not ashamed of (hah! – For once!).