The sweet and joyful character of this sonatina has made it the most popular of Kuhlau’s piano works. The beautiful and very lyrical first movement almost seems conceived for wind ensemble - perhaps an indication of Kuhlau’s close relation to this family of instruments: his father, grandfather and uncle were military oboists, and he wrote a lot of compositions for the flute, which earned him the honourable nickname “the Beethoven of the flute”.
Classical sonatas normally have three parts or movements: fast-slow-fast. However, this sonatina has only two movements: fast-faster. The bright and lively second movement is short but comprehensive: its main theme is dance-like and very articulated, but it also contains a more lyrical section, brilliant chromatic scales, and a dramatic grand finale.
I. Allegro This movement has three sections: an exposition, a development and a recapitulation. It is very important to know where these sections start and end, before you start practicing them.
EXPOSITION The exposition starts in measure 1 and ends in measure 20. Write the word “EXPOSITION” on the top of m. 1. This exposition, as in many sonatas, has two themes.
The first theme is in the tonic. If you group the first three notes together in the first measure (right hand), they form a C-Major chord. Circle all the C-Major arpeggios then play them as a chord (blocked) using the correct fingering.
Circle the rests marked on the bass clef. They are as important as the notes in between them and help one give more rhythmic vitality to their playing. The left hand has many passages with double notes in the middle register, whose sound reminds us of two horns playing together. Can you imagine horns when playing the left hand and a violin when playing the right hand?
The second theme is in the dominant (G Major). The horns can be heard here too. Practice mm. 10-12 left hand alone. Can you hear the horns alternating with the single note... Sign up for a Gold membership to read the practice tips.
Recording setup is a Windows pc with Audacity.exe . Microphone is one of those kind with an on - off switch and a clip for the collar.
I am posting the first movement for now; the second one will come later.
This would have been a recital piece, except, after I passed it, there was still plenty of time remaining to learn something else. I ended up playing two for the recital; one that was loud and bumptuous, and the other one was Chopin Prelude in A. I was still a kid at home at the time. To be truthful though, I never was too crazy about this one if only because of the exotic fingering in places.
Enjoy. Comments welcome. * Added 2nd movement on August 5 2008.
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Friedrich Kuhlau - Sonatinas :
Piano score: Scanned score (845 kB) 
Sonatina Op. 55 No. 1 - FREE SAMPLE (mp3 file) 
