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Cheers, Richard - there's a lot to think about there! I still can't help hearing those downward skips: A-D G-C E-F D-E as one of the main features though, since they're kind of musically exciting events - specifically as PAIRS, echoed rhythmically in the bass. And also, isn't there a pattern to them harmonically?The theme you mention I don't really hear at all!

I guess it's that you are able to look at the big picture, the structure of the piece, whereas I can only really take in the immediate.

I'll tune in with interest though.

The notes to listen to occur on the downbeats. If you tap your desk on beats one and three and raise your hand on beats two and four then concentrate just on the notes you hear on the downbeats.

Knowing what to listen for will help develop your hear. It won't happen overnight but it will improve by trying.

Stay with us!

Okay. This is a new concept for me - very interesting. I'm going to keep it in mind and play around with it when I can.

Thanks!

I see/hear a similarity to what I had previously called "something quite new starting at M37" and an already introduced theme/pattern from M10-M14. The melody in fact at M14 is nearly identical to the melody at M41, but one note lower. I think it may be possible to draw parallels between all the measures from M10-M14 with the measures from M37-41. But, then again, I could be way off.

This section though, starting at M37 sounds like it is more relaxed presentation of a previous theme, and I think it is coming from M10-M14.

What makes you think that? What notes, intervals, or rhythmic figures do you see in common?

Notes: No
Intervals: Melody intervals in M14=M41
Rhytmic figures: The bass is same rhythmic figures (M11-13 vs M37-M41) but not the same intervals at all.

I was trying to find where this "something new" could be coming from with already presented themes, but think now that it is just "something new." Like, a bridge passage or calming before a climax at M42.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50

(I thought I'd get the title in before it gets into the nineties.)

I have M37-41 as something new.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50


Yes, good idea.

Looking at the keys now for Exposition. I think just C major and G major are prevalent, and Exposition ends in G major.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50

As we're agreed on the keys in the exposition I may as well get this in as I have already started off this movement:

Exposition:

First Group (Tonic, C major)
M1-6 Theme 1, first ending
M7-14 Theme 1, second ending
M15-19 Transition theme that appears to announce new parts throughout the movement. This time it concludes with M19 turning the M18 figure upside down to announce the arrival of

Second Group (Dominant, G major)
M20-29 Theme 1, ending an a lovely arpeggio on D7 and back to
M30-33 Theme 1, abbreviated
M34-36 Transition theme returns, this time to announce
M37-41 Theme 2, strong on contrast, short on time, leading to
M42-53 Coda for the exposition.

Notes.
Haydn often used continuations and extensions to the opening theme for his second subject rather than a contrasting theme. Here, he simply changes the presentation and the endings. He gets a nice, if short, contrasting theme before the coda but does little with it in the development. He works the first theme more than usual in this sonata but has different endings throughout.

The coda makes use of sextuplets. These are very common in Haydn. We already experienced the outbreak of triplets in the sonata Hob. XVI/8 that we analysed after the first Clementi sonatina.

This does not fit well easily or obviously into expected sonata form. It was written in 1794-5 on one of his London tours (it is frequently referred to as the "English" sonata). This is well after Mozart's death so he and Mozart had both established what we now know as sonata form by this time but we can now understand that it's much more flexible than may have been believed.

The recapitulation and the exposition are not identical twins, as has already been noted. The comparison, when we finish, is quite intriguing.

The keys in the development are not what you might expect from a piece in C major.

Enjoy!

Pretty much exactly what I was thinking too, Richard.

Well actually, I suppose I was a bit off.

But, with these notes on my score now and listening again, everything makes perfect sense the way you describe it here.

Look forward to moving into development now. Right off the bat I'm seeing some sharps and flats and F is soon natural. Makes me think we might be moving into something minor, but no breaking news just yet.

to be continued ...

While you're busy with the development section, Jeff, here's some thoughts for those not actively involved in analysis but following nonetheless.

Picking up on my earlier post about the opening theme here descending to tonic and Bob's query about why Haydn chose A and D to follow, it doesn't really matter what ELSE he chose, as long as the beat started on D. In the second run through, M7-10, he decorates a G for the first two notes but a simple experiment at the piano will show that his options are wide. Although a drop of a third and fourth onto the principal notes doesn't work too well, drops of a second, fifth and seventh are better or simply maintaining a trill on C does a fine job as long as the E-D-C, F-E-D-C notes are hit on the beat.

Why is this?

It's a feature of our music system and why the key and time signature are equally important at the start of a piece. In a post some months ago someone queried why Chopin's Nocturne in E flat wasn't written in 3/4 time since it was basically a waltz. But it isn't. It's in 12/8 for a reason.

Hidden beneath each bar of common time are unwritten accents on the four beats, strong, weak, medium, weak. All the other notes are unaccented, the second note of quaver pairs, the two trailing notes in a triplet and the three trailing notes in semiquavers. Note that weak accents are still stronger than unaccented notes. This is particularly important in rock that relies on the back beat and effectively uses medium-strong-weak-strong as it's underlying pattern. So there are always four dynamic levels in a bar of common time, even if there aren't that many notes in the bar.

If you take a book of carols or folk songs and play just the first note of each bar (and hold it for the appropriate duration) in 3/4 time and the first and third in 4/4 time you will get the basic musical sense of the piece. The other notes are essentially padding and could be almost anything diatonic and still fit without changing the essence of the music.

This will be important in our next sonata, which features, in common with many pieces and the practise of the day, variation form.

It may also help in some sonatas (not this one) where the composer has disguised in the development section the themes from the exposition. If you concentrate on the beat notes of the principal themes it's easier to pick up the themes elsewhere in different guises.

I learnt this when I was given a recorder at eight years old when music was compulsory in schools. I am aghast that this isn't pointed out more in current tutors and online theory courses.

So, when you learn your next piece of Bach, for example, pay attention to the beat notes and add the appropriate emphasis to them instead of just playing sixteen semiquavers of equal weight.

Richard, thank you for that explanation. That is certainly something for me to pay attention to in the pieces I am learning currently: to consciously pay attention to the beat stresses. What about appoggiaturas, though?

It's their occurrence on the beat and their delayed resolution that gives them their piquancy!

If the beat were not so important they'd lose their appeal.

Great stuff - thanks for taking the trouble to explain all that so clearly, Richard.

So I'm curious, when you're analysing the piece do you feel you're somehow reconstructing how Haydn would have made it? He would have started with the very simple theme that you've identified and everything else that happens is like the flesh he hangs on that skeletal frame (and it's later variants etc.)?


Cheers

(Incidentally there are times when it's hard for me to post, but I'll always show up eventually!)

Rather than reconstructing, I think we're deconstructing.

By examining each piece and breaking it down into it's component parts we can get a better understanding of the musical language of that composer and the musical language of the day.

I don't think we can see the composers thought processes that went into the creation necessarily but by seeing what he ends up with and how the parts relate to each other we can better understand the result.

There's no question, as far as I'm concerned, that I understand the theory and details of John Lennon's work better than he ever did but I could never come up with those ideas myself. To him, it just works, to me there's a science to why and how it works.

When we analyse a piece we get to know it better and understand it better. This has two practical applications. It makes it easier to learn and remember and it makes it easier to interpret. It also increases our listening pleasure and musical appreciation.

Mozart claims he saw all his compositions in a coup d'oeil so there would be no construction process after that. Beethoven spent years over his compositions wringing every last drop from the potential of each and every figure, just look at what he did with the birdcall, da-da-da-dah, in his fifth symphony.

There may be some insight as to how to construct a piece out of one or two themes and figures but that's not the same as the original inspiration or creation.

You'll be welcome, Rob, whenever you show up.

Hi Richard

Yes, I was wrapped up in that whole rock thing as a kid. In that world pretty much just a guitar and some attitude generates all the musical content I think, and probably few would have known what that back beat you mentioned earlier actual was, even if they were playing it, aside from maybe Chuck Berry who mentioned it in his song.

Haydn had his keyboard and own kind of playful attitude, but he also had Fux and Part 2 of CPE Bach's Essay to bolster him, and of course some different types of aims. I read an interesting quote recently where he talks about his working method, but looking around, couldn't find it again. As I remember it however, I think he was saying he'd be improvising at the keyboard, and the sense of grasping something whole would come over him, and he was criticising the younger generation of musicians for failing to find this unifying force in their work.

Maybe I'll have another look for the actual quote, but don't want to sidetrack too much from the work being done here.

Cheers

I'd be cautious of underestimating the musical knowledge of some of those rockers and the songs have a lot more in them than meets the eye.

We spent some time earlier looking at unity in the works, particularly across sonata movements. I'm sure we'll return to it.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50

Richard, how are mm. 15-19 and 34-36 similar? You've said they both represent the same Transition Theme.

I've read your division of the exposition into parts and themes, and I would never in 9000 years have figured it out.

pianoslacker, if you can find the quote you were talking about, I think it will be very pertinent.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50

To expand on that, I could hear where theme 1 starts again throughout, but then every time it would go dancing off into ornaments and various different figures, and I couldn't tell if they were all different motifs, or if not, then how were they similar to something that had come previously, or whether the material constituted an extension of one theme, or an entirely new theme.

It's somewhat disconcerting to discover that this entire elaborate movement is built on the mundane sequence F E D C. Or maybe it should be inspiring, that on such an apparently unpromising base Haydn erects such a joyful and fanciful structure.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. XVI/50

Theme 1 is very prevalent early on in development:

Right away the melody figure from theme 1 is in LH in M54-M55 and then RH in M56.

I'd be interested to figure out what key we are moving through here. It sounds minor, but I can't (or at least have not yet) figured it out.

Then I think we have some new material in M57-M59. But same theme 1 melody figure comes back in LH again at M60-M63. Then M61 has a new figure from theme 1 (second ending theme one) from M10-M11.

M66-M72 is some very pretty material and I also think from exposition. Perhaps theme 2 of exposition, but would like to think more on this part.

This is as far as I am to now.