Sonatina Op. 36 No. 6 Analysis

This piece is a sonatina by Muzio Clementi. The tempo is allegro, and con spirito means to play it in a lively manner. The dolce written below the first few notes means to play the beginning very gently and sweetly. The piece starts off with a turn in the anacrusis followed by a few simple D major arpeggios with a grace note, while the left hand is playing an alberti bass in D major. This is followed by two turns where the left hand briefly shifts to G major, the subdominant key, and returns to D major when the right hand plays the scale. The next rhythm starts with two eight notes, a turn, and the fifth interval of the first key in a dotted rhythm. This is played in the dominant key, starting on G, and then the tonic key, starting on F#. This is followed by broken chords while the left hand plays octaves, changing the key to dominant. Finally, the section ends with thirds in the right hand and broken chords in the left to produce a plagal cadence.

The alberti bass continues here accompanying scales in a dominant key. The crescendo eventually leads to a rising forte tonic scale. It is followed by a subdominant arpeggio and dominant scale, leading to the next motif. This motif is a dotted rhythm, followed by some broken chords and a turn, ending with a tonic chord, while the left hand plays an arpeggio followed by octaves. This motif is repeated an octave higher, although the left hand stays the same. This is followed by a motif similar to the one in bar 5, which repeats twice, while the left hand transitions into an alberti bass from the arpeggio.

Here the left hand plays octaves while the right hand plays scales, changing the key from E7, D major, E major, and finally A major. The next motif consists of two eight notes an octave apart followed by a turn. This motif is repeated thrice, the first two times in F# minor, and finally ending in E major, creating a perfect cadence. The next section suddenly in piano, creating contrast, and is to be played sweetly and gently as well, since dolce is written. The left hand starts an alberti bass again. The first bar of this section is in E7, while the second is in A. In the third bar, the first half is in E7 and the second half is A again. Also, notice that the notes from the right and left hand on the accented beats of the bar are progressing downward in thirds. This motif repeats again in the same keys. However, on the third bar of the motif the second time it is played has thirds and fifths on the non-accented beats of the bar, going from A major to E7.

In the first motif, the right plays mostly sixteenth notes with some staccato eight notes in between. Every time the left hand plays in the bar, the key changes, first from A to its subdominant, D, and finally to the dominant, E. This same chord progression continues in the next few bars, only with scales. The motif repeats, and the second time when the scales progress downward the left hand starts playing octaves and the key changes to the subdominant. The right hand starts playing thirds, changing the key to the dominant, and finally ends with an A major chord accompanied by an arpeggio, creating a perfect cadence.

 

This section of the piece starts off with a run starting on A, while the left hand plays A constantly. The right hand continues and plays thirds in the key of A, and does another run to change to the subdominant key, and the motif is repeated in that key. Finally, a turn changes the key to A7 and a scale down to F# changes is back to the original key, D major. The left hand now switched to constantly playing Ds while the right hand continues the previous motif in the key of D, then its subdominant, G. This time, after the chords the right hand continues with thirds with an occasional fifth by itself while the left hand keeps playing single notes, slowly progressing downward. It gradually gets louder, and the final two beats of the left hand are forte octaves of F#.

The forte octaves of the left hand continue here as the right hand plays alternating sixteenth notes, and the progression eventually leads back to A major. Right hand continues with a similar pattern, only with a staccato eight note added to the end of each four sixteenth notes, while the left hand plays A octaves in a sort of dotted pattern, but instead of a dot there’s a rest. This continues 5 times, the last time suddenly played in piano for contrast, and the next section is the same as the beginning. From here on I will only analyze parts that differ from earlier in the piece.

Here the piece become different from the beginning in the last bar of the second line. Here, instead of two eight notes and a turn, there are scales while the left hand continues playing octaves, but slowly progresses downward until finally the right hand plays a turn followed by A major chords accompanied by the left hand’s octaves, creating a perfect cadence. The next section is similar to the one on the second page, only in the key of A major.

In the final motif starting on the third line here, the broken chord, instead of alternating thirds, is followed by D major scale down to A while the left hand start playing octaves. The right hand starts playing thirds, and the piece finally ends with a D major chord accompanied by an arpeggio from the left hand.