How to Play Clementi’s Sonatina Op. 36 No. 1 in C Major (2nd Movement)

This is LivingPianos.com, Robert Estrin presenting how to learn the second movement of Clementi's famous sonatina opus 36 number 1 in C major.

More than that, how to get it on a really high level and play it expressively. You're going to learn that today.

This is part of a 3-part, actually a 4-part series. The 3 movements each dissecting how to work on them as well as a complete performance of the work, all 3 movements. So now we're going to delve into the second movement. What a stark difference for the first movement. The first movement of course has a crispness and a clarity with, I talked about getting the crisp staccatos from the wrist and the finger work and exaggerating the difference between staccatos and legatos, fortis, pianos.

And now the mood changes. You finish the first movement, incidentally between movements, don't take your hands off the piano because people will think that the piece is over and they'll clap right in the middle because the work, the 3 movements create a bigger effect than each of the movements added up. In other words, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

That's right. So when you get done with the first movement and instead of showing that you do that and then people will think you're done but instead then gradually get over the keys to the second movement and a total change of mood and tonal color.

This movement actually in many ways is the most challenging movement of the 3 which is counterintuitive because the outer movements are the fast movements and have the staccatos and dynamic changes but in order to get the balance between the hands it is a tremendously difficult thing to achieve. Why is this? A lot of reasons. Number one, notes that are high in the piano don't last as long as notes that are low.

Secondly, you've got 3 times more notes in the left hand, sometimes 6 times more so this note that's holding for 2 beats is already so quiet while these notes.

So if I were to play this with equal volume in the two hands the left hand is going to sound far louder than the right hand for the reasons I just articulated. The fact that the lower notes are constantly reinforcing while the higher notes are longer and fading out and they don't last as long anyway because they're higher in the piano and this is what you'd end up with playing the hands equally.

You lose the whole melody. Now one of the things I'm going to talk about in order to achieve the balance it's much much easier at a slightly faster tempo.

This is because the notes don't have to last as long. You don't want to go too slowly. It's an andante, not an adagio or a largo. Andante has a certain amount of motion. Literally translated it's like walking or strolling so it's a relaxed tempo but not really slow. Sometimes you'll hear people playing...

And it loses the whole motion so you want to think the quarter note is the beat and then lighten up the left hand, keep the fingers right on the surface of the keys as delicately as you can play. And what you're going to find is you'll use much more weight of the arm in your right hand to get the melody to sustain from note to note.

You notice there was a rise and a fall in the dynamics. This is the most natural thing in the world in music just as it is in your speech. Notice when I talk there's a rise of inflection in the middle of the sentence and it naturally comes down again.

If you didn't do that it would sound harsh and unnatural.

There's no shape. There's no life.

Life is breath. You think about the effect your breathing has on you, on your psyche. Every moment you're alive you're breathing.

Taking in that nice oxygen, expelling the carbon dioxide and breathing in.

Again and again. And that is what it reflected and what gives your music its life. It's a reflection of life itself. That the rise and the fall, it's the most natural thing in the world. It's such a part of ourselves that to make music devoid of it makes the music lifeless. So to achieve this you have to use much more weight of the arm and I talked about this in many videos. So you don't just use a floppy finger and try to calculate getting louder and louder. You get a harsh sound.

Instead you just drop the arm and support your entire arm with that one finger and then transfer the weight from finger to finger.

And this trill by the way, you don't have to play all those notes. Matter of fact don't play all those notes. There's no reason to. Later on if you gain a lot of comfort and confidence you can play the kind of trills I'm playing. What I would suggest is just play two notes in the right hand for each of the triplets in the left hand.

So it sounds perfectly fine and you know trills have a certain amount of creative license. There's no certain number of notes you have to play in the trill.

Too many notes as a matter of fact I think it's unmusical.

Listen to it with just the sixteenth, well they're actually sextuplets because there's two to each triplet. Listen it sounds perfectly fine and you don't have to beat yourself up and work so hard and try to play a trill that's hard to negotiate.

It's perfectly beautiful.

That's what I recommend. When you're learning this piece just play a simple trill.

Now the next phrase also all the phrases every single phrase in this movement has a rise and a fall and this isn't just in this movement. This is prevalent in just about all lyrical music whether it's Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann, even twentieth century music whether it's Poulenc or Shostakovich.

Any slow movement is going to have a rise and a fall because think about this the piano is trying to imitate what? Wind instruments, boat instruments, everything goes down comes down to the human voice the original instrument of all time which we all carry with us. You must have that sense of musical line the rise and the fall. Now the next section is challenging because you have repeated notes it's very difficult to get legato repeated notes because the dampers are impacting the strings. Incidentally I use no pedal in the performance that you'll hear of this piece. I don't think it's necessary and I think it can just muddy things up and you won't gain nearly as much in studying the piece if you're covering things with a pedal instead of learning how to articulate how to control the legato in the second movement with your fingers which brings us to the challenge of repeated notes.

You must change fingers for repeated notes without changing fingers this is a sound you'll get.

The legato is so much more effective for this singing line. The way to achieve repeated notes that are as connected as possible is by changing fingers and lifting high previously played fingers. If you change fingers and move the arm it'll sound the same as using the same finger.

The secret is lifting high previously played fingers otherwise this will happen.

You see what happens? You have to lift up so when you want to put your fourth finger after the fifth finger lift high that fourth finger and then when you want to play the fifth finger again lift high the fourth finger much higher than you think because when you're down like this your finger needs to get up and out of the way so that the next finger can play.

Perhaps seeing this on the side would be more effective.

You see how that works? It really enables the beautiful musical line.

And once again the rise and the fall and here's another rise and fall of the phrasing.

Now interesting rhythm here if you want to get really technical about it that sixteenth note in that dotted rhythm in the eighth measure the temptation is to play it halfway between the last triplet and left hand but that's technically not what the rhythm is because this is one and one and a two one and a two one and a two. So realize that A comes in slightly sooner than you think and it's slightly longer because it's not a division of six which is what would happen if you played that A halfway between the last triplet and the next beat.

So not that's wrong rhythm and listen how much nicer it sounds with the right rhythm compared to playing it short as a half of a triplet like a sixteenth septuplet.

Doesn't have nearly the grace does it? Now this next phrase is really challenging because you have repeated notes and you don't want it to sound like this.

You want it to be as legato as possible. How can you play legato when you've repeated notes where you absolutely can't change fingers because you've got thirds and the secret is stay close to the keys. Never let your fingers leave the surface of the keys but be absolutely certain that the keys come all the way up between each repetition.

It's actually harder than it sounds to achieve that. Try it and you'll see.

Once again that day crescendo at the end of the phrase and don't be fooled by the fact that that measure looks so small. It takes as much time as every other measure in the movement.

The tendency is to play it faster because it looks like it takes less time visually. The other thing is be sure you have enough power on the half note because if you play the half note weekly what's going to happen is you're not going to be able to make a day crescendo and the last note will come out and be like a punch in the face after this beautiful let's see that's exactly what you don't want. You want the to melt have enough power on the half note so you can make the day crescendo.

Another thing to realize is that this is a sixth and you can't I mean I guess you could use two five to one four but that's really not very comfortable unless your hands are very large so you're probably going to use the thumb on the F and the E.

Don't try to don't make the mistake of trying to connect it because if you try to connect it you you're going to sacrifice everything because you can't connect the thumb to a thumb.

So what you do instead is maximize the legato but you can connect the top note and release the thumb so that you can get the legato on the note you can connect the notes on top.

See how I'm lifting up my thumb so you can get the nice legato or you can use a second finger but if you use the thumb on both with that nice day crescendo remember nice arm weight on the long note it's got to last long enough that you can make a day crescendo on it. Don't be afraid in a piano context to play with more sound than you think you should be playing.

Remember dynamics are not something that somebody is going to measure with a decibel meter it's not about absolute volume it's about tone and if you've ever sat in the symphony orchestra and listened to a wind player for example play a solo a flute or a oboes playing a solo that's piano they're still projecting with great energy with breath support and so it is when you play the piano if you're playing this in a hall that piano melody has to reach the last row of the balcony. So you know we are so used to playing in smaller rooms when you go into a larger space you realize the potential dynamic range within a piano context. So now we once again we have the repeated notes and day crescendo.

Crescendo, crescendo again and day crescendo.

Here again you have repeated notes remember to change fingers for repeated notes lifting previously played fingers high and then of course the end brings back the first theme again.

I'll play the simple trill.

Again changing fingers for the repeated notes and crescendo.

Quite a contrast to the bouncy clarity of the first movement and the third one which you'll hear in the next video. This is a four-part series as I mentioned check them all out for yourself and you'll be able to master this wonderful sonatina of Clementi and incidentally everything I'm showing you in this sonatina not only relates to all six of Clementi sonatinas and Kulao sonatinas and Beethoven sonatinas it actually transcends to sonatas as well. The sonatas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven and beyond. So this is good stuff for you. I hope you like it. Check out the description. I have a lot of resources for you there. Again, I'm Robert Estrin. This is LivingPianos.com, your online piano resource.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/master-clementis-sonatina-in-c-major-opus-36-no-1-2nd-movement/

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

Thank you for your comment, question or request!

Comment/Question deleted successfully.

Post a comment, question or special request:

Comments or questions must be between 3 and 10,000 characters long.

You may: Login  or  

Otherwise, fill out the form below to post your comment:

Add your name below:


Add your email below: (to receive replies, will not be displayed or shared)


For verification purposes, please enter the word MUSIC in the field below

---