Sonatina in F, 1st Movement: A Section

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.

And in this lesson, we're going to learn another sonatina of mysterious origins. "Sonatina in F Major" Anh. 5, No.2.

It's usually attributed to Beethoven because it was found with his papers after his death.

But many scholars aren't so sure it was Beethoven because it wasn't published during Beethoven's lifetime, and it has some characteristics that aren't quite typical of Beethoven's other compositions.
We may never know for sure, but regardless of who it was composed by, it's a fantastic piece. I learned it myself when I was 10 years old for a piano competition.

And I remember loving it. Let's have a listen to "Sonatina in F."

Here's the score for "Sonatina in F Major" Anh. 5, No.2.

You might remember in an earlier one of my lessons we learned Anh. 5, No.1.

So today we're learning it's partner, also found in the same papers in Beethoven's home after his death.

Is this by him? We'll never know for sure.

This of course is the first movement and our tempo indication is allegro which means fast. Assai

is an Italian word that means enough. So fast enough. In other words, fast but not too fast, just fast enough.

All right, treble clef and bass clef that's what we expect, and what's our key signature?

One flat, and well, the title kind of gave it away, right?

We're in the key of F major, and of course we expect to see that B-flat when we're in F major, and what's the left hand doing here.

Playing an F major broken triad, all these things confirm that yes, Beethoven knew what he was doing. It's in the key of F major.

Now,

we have a tenuto mark here.

Don't forget a tenuto means to give a note a little extra emphasis. Sometimes composers use that to show where the melody is.

It can also mean to hold that for the full value. So we want to really hold that note out and then

a tenuto with a staccato.

My piano teacher used to call that portato. I've heard it called sticky staccato or detached. You're going to make these

staccato but not too staccato.

Just kind of think of a fat, chubby staccato. A sticky staccato.

Then a nice decrescendo as you do this F major scale descending.

Now, because we have all these 16th notes,

counting with subdivided 16th notes can really help your rhythm be accurate.

So some of you might find it helpful to write in the counts like I've done for measures one through four.

So you know how long to hold like this quarter note. 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a, 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a, 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a.

And I've seen so many students rush this quarter note if they're not counting 1-e-&-a. That quarter note has to last all four of these sixteenth note subdivisions. 1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a. So the counting will really help you not rush this measure.

2-e is this eighth note, and then notice this eighth rest gets the &-a.

So how do you know when to start this rest, when do you lift your hand?

For the rest lift it right on the &.

1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a. The & is exactly where to start that rest.

1-e-&-a 2-e-&-a

Now some of you also may want to go through and circle any notes that are going to be automatically flat

because of our key signature. So here's a B, here's a B.

Here's a B. I'm not going to circle them all for you, but,

some of you may find that helpful so you don't miss any of the B-flats,

and then finally on this line, can you find and point to a grace note?

If you're pointing right here, you found it. Grace notes are these cute little notes with the slash through,

and remember those are played very quickly.

It's going to instantly go to the next note.

Almost in a flash, and notice this G is also marked staccato. So the grace notes on A.

The next note is G, so it's going to go A G.

And the G is staccato.

So it's going to all happen kind of in a flash.

And once again the counting can help.

Grace notes don't get their own rhythmic values, so think of this grace note as belonging with beat 2.

Here on this E, and then 2-e, and then you'll play this next note on the &-

a of the beat. So it's 2-e-&-a.

That's what this beat will sound like. 2,

again the grace note is part of beat 2. 2, kind of think of it as one motion. 2-e-&-a. Now you try.

Now I'd like to challenge you to pause the video and on your own figure out the right hand part and left hand part for measures one all the way up to measure 18. Learn it hands alone at first if you want to try little hands toget ...