Piano Sonata

Piano Sonata

By Matthew C. Saunders (2010)

a joint commission of the Music Teachers National Association and the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association

Piano Sonata (2010) Piano Sonata (2010) is my first extended composition for solo piano. Its single movement explores most of the influences and techniques that I have come to consider integral to my style at the end of the first decade of the new millennium while also pushing toward a mastery of longer musical forms; it is my longest single movement to date. This work adheres to no standard formal plan, taking the name Sonata in the broad sense of a major artistic statement for a solo instrument. Like most of my music, this piece did not really begin to take shape until I was able to conceive of it with a specific performer in mind, in this case, Dr. Dianna Anderson of Minot State University. Dianna and I first met in 1996 when she was a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati and I was assigned to her studio for elective piano lessons. After we reconnected about ten years later, Dianna agreed to premiere my piano cycle Starry Wanderers on a faculty recital in Minot in 2009. Our artistic partnership has been a boon to my work and is a model for the way I hope to create in the future.

The piece is constructed around a family of chords that is built of stacks of sevenths, and consciously visits the various registers and tone colors of the piano in succession. My music is largely rhythmic in its conception, and this piece is no exception to that rule, employing mixed meters, asymmetrical meter and rhythmic structures borrowed from ragtime and jazz in addition to a section in what I have termed “quintuplous meter,” or music with five notes to every beat. More important, however, are a series of images (in no particular order): driving into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on U.S. 64 in New Mexico; the stars on a clear winter’s night in the Texas Panhandle; the Oklahoma City National Memorial on a quiet Sunday morning; the Olympic Mountains of Washington at sunset; my infant son asleep in my arms. The reverence and awe, sometimes bordering on vertigo, of these images provides the core compositional motivation for this piece.

Matthew C. Saunders has taught music from kindergarten to college in styles from madrigal to mariachi, and strives to make beautiful music for and with captivating people. He has climbed mountains, saved someone’s life, and watched the moon rise over the prairie. He has loved, lost, and loved again; helped friends find salvation, and found it for himself as well; taught genius students, and learned from genius teachers. On the day his son Noah was born, he gave him his first shampoo, and looks forward to teaching him to catch a baseball and ride a bicycle sometime around 2015. His dreams are to walk on Mars, hear a grand piano fall into an orchestra pit, make more people laugh than cry, and love his wife Becky passionately and forever. He plays trombone and is always getting better at playing piano, and in the course of a long, love-filled, productive life, he wants to compose the Great American Symphony, ride the rails, hike the trails, read all of the good books, finally watch The Godfather, and storm the castles in the air. He will never write unlistenable music, stop stargazing or lose money in Vegas. He doesn’t call his mother often enough, but he still tries to do a good turn daily. He is always up for a few hands of euchre or a good game of chess, likely winning the former and losing the latter.

Dr. Saunders is Associate Professor of Music and department chair at Lakeland Community College, where he teaches music theory and the history of popular music, and directs the Lakeland Civic Orchestra. Prior to coming to Lakeland in 2012, he held the position of Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at Oklahoma Panhandle State University from 2007 to 2012. He received degrees in music from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and The Ohio State University. Dr. Saunders studied composition with Donald Harris, Thomas Wells, Jan Radzynski and Wes Flinn, and trombone with Joseph Duchi and Tony Chipurn. His fourteen years’ experience in music education includes teaching band, general music and music theory in public elementary, middle, high schools, colleges, and universities in rural, suburban and urban settings in Ohio, Georgia, and Oklahoma. Dr. Saunders’ original compositions have been performed across the country, including performances at national conferences of the International Horn Society and the Society of Composers, and he has presented his research on rhythm at conferences of the College Music Society and the Society of Composers, and at the Oklahoma Music Theory Roundtable and the Aspen Composers Conference. He was the conference co-host of the 2012 Society of Composers Region VI Conference, held at West Texas A&M University in October 2012. He received the 2007 Ruth Friscoe Prize for composition and was the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association 2011 Commissioned Composer. His music is published by Imagine Music, and he has written articles for The Journal of Band Research, Music Educators Journal, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and The Instrumentalist. He is on the web at www.martiandances.com, but the physical Dr. Saunders lives in Willowick, Ohio with his wife Becky and their son Noah.

Contact Information: Matthew C. Saunders th 257 East 286 Street—Willowick, Ohio 44095-5031 (580) 461-1617—matthew@martiandances.com—www.martiandances.com

A Note Concerning Notation Measures 281 through 360 of this piece utilize a notational innovation referred to by the composer as quintuplous meter. Unlike most metric schemes, in which the beat divides evenly into two or three parts (duplous and triplous meters, respectively), quintuplous meter is characterized by the equal division of the beat into five parts.

Preferred meter signatures for quintuplous meter have 10, 15 or 20 as the top number and indicate, respectively, 2, 3 or 4 beats per measure.

A beat-length note or rest in quintuplous meter is identified by a diagonal slash through the notehead or rest from top left to bottom right. Just as the augmentation dot indicates that the basic value is multiplied by 3/2, the slash indicates that the basic value is multiplied by 5/4. A slashed quarter-note, for example, is an abbreviation for a quarter-note tied to a sixteenth-note. As with dotted notes, slashed notes divide evenly into two slashed notes of the next smallest rhythmic value; e.g., a slashed quarter-note evenly divides into two slashed eighth-notes.

   



     

=

=

   

     5

  =



 

        5

a joint commission of the Music Teachers National Association and the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association

Piano Sonata             

MATTHEW C. SAUNDERS (2010)

Grave (q=56) 

          



  3     

          

3

ff con forza

mp sotto voce

            



                    

a tempo      3 3 6                                  3

f

ff con forza

mp

3

  3             mf         



3                            3 3          10 mp sotto voce (come sopra)                                           3 3 3 ff  3 3 f                                                    molto    accel.

15   3                            3 pp p mf 3 p   mf       3 3    sfz                                      3  May 18, 2011 Revision Copyright © 2010 

poco accel.

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

2

 20         

     

  

  

  

  

       

               

22

                                 cresc. molto                                           Allegro con anima (q=118)                                   f e sempre secco e ritmico

                                         24                

sfz

      

                        

                       

                                                                      furioso  27                                                                 

   

ff

               

 

 

                     f

30



            

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

3                                

                  

    



33

 



  

 



  

sfz



                       mp



  

p

                        



                                         

37

p

cresc. poco a poco

                                                                         

42

(mp)

(mf)

      

                                                       

     

                              Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

4 48

                                                       poco accel.

Alla marcia (q=124)         53                                    f  mp, lilliputian                                                   59                                            (poco f)



                        





      

           f

             

64

mp

f

                         p                                     

                 68           



        

    

    

              

            

mf

  



      

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders   5 72                                 p

                   

        

76

brittle

f





                         

     

              

 

            subito p

     

                                                                        

80

subito f

                                                      85                                              p

                                                               90                   floating

  



     

       

  



  



 

6

 95      

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

   

            mf f                                   

                   105                     

  3

  



3

                  3



   3

  112





  

3



3

 3

 

  



3

                       

3

  

 

   



3

6

   3

ff 3

      

     subito p                     

3

3

3

3

3

           

  

  

3

3

3





  



  

   

cresc. poco a poco

109



  



                        

100

   

3

3

  



 

   



3

3

 3

                        3

   

3

               

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

119



 

  

                  



       



  

  

                            

124

  

 

 

pp

           3

    

     3

mp sotto voce

3         

      

  

  

 

   

                        sfz sfz                        

      mp

7

ff con forza

 

   

     

sfz

     

130

  

 

 

3 3

 

Tempo primo (q=56)

poco rit.

3

           3

sfz



      

lunga



sfz

    

             3

        3

 

3 3 3 3                                          3 3

134

3



  

3

mf

      

    

  

  



     

8

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

     

138

mp



     



                   una corda

pp

141

      

 

cresc. poco a poco

   

  3                 3 3   3

     

145

      

3

   

 

                   



              

  

 

 

 

tre corde, mf



3

 

   3

 

3

         

 

   

        

  

 

          3

3

3

  

    

 

  





   

150 Doppio movimiento (q=104)

      sotto voce mp una corda

     

                                                      

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

                                           3

155

3

9

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

                                      3 3 3 3 3 3 3 mf still calmly

3

159



3

3

 3

3

3

3

poco scherzando (poco più mosso)

                         3

3

tre corde                                        3 3 3  3 mf

163

                             f  

167







            mf

f

                                  





                              p, hesitantly

f, piu forzado

mp, quasi-echo f

                                                                             

170

ff

mp, quasi-echo

f

                                           

10

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

                                      mp

173

                                                                               

178

f

                                      

182

 

   

    

   

 

 

 

                ff mp p                      

                                          crescendo molto  

184

                                           

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

187



       

190

 

 

     

  

       

   

       

m.d.

         sfz 

       

      

            

            

m.s.

(loco)

      

192

detached, but not staccato

 



       

 m.d.                   ff sfz

     

 

11

                    

           

   

                           3 3 3                             3

3

3

3

3

12

                                   ff mf ff                                    Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

194

 

                                 3 3 3 mp, quasi-echo f  3 3                         3     198  3                            3 3 3

196



3

3

            3



                        3

201

                3 

p





  

203



                 

3

 

 



3



  



        3

3



3

  





   

      

   

3

3

f

3

      3

3

  

3



   







Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

   

13

              3 3 3 mp cresc.  ff sfz sfz 3 3 3                                  3   206                                  3 3 3   3 mp cresc.

205

  

   

3

 3       207

    

      

ff con forza

 





      

     

     

3 3

sfz

3

            

3

      



3

3

 3         sfz

 3    

3

ff sfz

sfz

              

   

pp

     

                                         3 6 3

210

f

3

3

6

3

mp

3

3 6  3    3     6  3    3  3                     

                                       3 3 3 3

212

f

3

3

3

3

ff

     3 3 33   3 3  3 3                                

14

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

                                     3 3 3 pp mp f sfz mf mp

216

                                       3

3

3

                                       mp3  3 f

219

                                          3

            

222

ff

  sfz         secco 

  sfz          

          

226



 

3

           sfz

  

ff molto ritmico m.d.

 

m.s.

      sfz sfz sfz                              

mf

                          

           

                         

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

15

rit.

                                               

                   

with increasing deliberateness

229

 233                                           sfz             



 

               

   

                

         245

 

     

   

        

pp

      

   

mp, settled

    

 



 



   

mf

   

mp

       

                     p

                      

        

          

   

f

   

mp

   

Con dolore (q=72)



240

 

    

      

         

    

  

     257

 

       

mp una corda

 

       

  

          



p

 



  

     



         

      cantabile

pp

mp tre corde

   

262



    









         

poco a poco dim.

    

pp



     



mf

 

   









   

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders



251

   



16

una corda

    



                            268                                                               p sempre mp mf cresc.                                                274                                                         f                                                  

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

 a piacere, quasi-cadenza

     f forceful

281

17

 

280

      

Molto più mosso

  



  



  



  

 



mf, energico

                                                  284            sf

f sempre

                              mp   287         

    

                                               290                                                         

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

18 293











 

 

                                       sfz 296           f

                          mf    299           



                

                                         301                                                303                                                          

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

19

306



  

  



 

   ff

                                                         309                                   ff, brutal

               312                 sfz

ff

N.B.!

                  316                 

                                

 

                  

        

    

   

 



                     

    

     

     

                                                             

sub. mp

                           mf                                                           

321

      

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

20326

            f

                                            ff rabid

              sfz

                                                                      330

   



   



 

f

mf

   



      

    

  

                               332                                



 

p

sfz

 



         sfz

   

f

                                                                          senza rall.  f 336        più energetico (a l'istesso tempo)                 ff        340                                      

     

  

   

  

 

 

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

21

        

343



  

346



    

     349        

  

              

 

  

 

  

 

                                          

cresc. molto

      351                        353



 

                 



ff poss.

     

  

    





     

  

  

 

     

      

     

           

         

 

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

22 355



        

 f

   



  

     





   



                                                   rall.

357

p

mf

    

  

 

              

f

ff

    361           

    

                      366            

      

sempre ff con gravita e tutta forza



      

  

  

    

              

  

        

         

  

      



sfz

                                                                 Maestoso molto grave (h=64)



 

    

    

   

    





     

      

       

      

        

     

    

 

                 

    

         

371



376



    

Piano Sonata (2010)/Saunders

      

                 

        

                  

    

         

      

   

     

                    

    

 

    

  

           

  

   

    



    

   

         

   

  381       

 

    

      

 

       

      

      

      

      

    

    

    

Allargando

384

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    

23

 

        

14'11"