Recommend sonatinas for 40p/sightreading practice?

ShiroKuro

Someone in a recent thread was talking about using sontatinas for sightreading or 40P style practice, but I can’t find the comment and I can’t remember who it was that posted this. Another poster commented that while they didn’t like listening to sonatinas, they are really fun to play.

This got my curiosity up. I assumed they were talking about Clementi, but maybe not? Can someone comment on this? Should I assume the composer was Clementi?

If I wanted to get a book of Clementi sonatinas, for sightreading or quick study pieces, what book should I get? Or, if not what book, what opus numbers (if that’s the right thing to ask)?

Thank in advance to anyone who can comment on this!

lilypad

ShiroKuro Someone in a recent thread was talking about using sontatinas for sightreading or 40P style practice, but I can’t find the comment and I can’t remember who it was that posted this. Another poster commented that while they didn’t like listening to sonatinas, they are really fun to play.

That might have been this: [https://forum.pianotell.com/d/852-the-sight-reading-thread/136]. The first book in the series has a variety of composers with sonatinas in the grade 1-3 range.

ShiroKuro

BTW I have a few different volumes of the Music for Millions/Classics to Moderns series. I worked through a few pieces on one of them, but somehow it seemed like the music was all over the place, and I didn’t continue with it. Is it possible that one of these books would be better? Maybe I need to go grab them from the shelf and take a look again, since that was several years ago…

Sam

These are some Sonatinas typically used for students:

Clementi Sonatinas op. 36
Diabelli Sonatinas op. 151, 168
Kuhlau Sonatinas op 20, 55, 59, 60, 88
Also many of the Haydn Sonatas are considered Sonatinas.

And CPE Bach wrote a lot of Sonatas that are mostly just one note in each hand - they are all online - he is considered a bridge between baroque and classical.

Sam
Sam

ShiroKuro

Sam Clementi Sonatinas op. 36
Diabelli Sonatinas op. 151, 168
Kuhlau Sonatinas op 20, 55, 59, 60, 88
Also many of the Haydn Sonatas are considered Sonatinas.

Sam, how would you rank those in order of difficulty? In the order you listed them?

@BartK thanks for the recommendation! I just requested that book through my library.

BartK

It's better to have a variety of composers. Each composer has their own peculiarities and sounds a bit different, and the sonatina tradition has been continued long after the classical era so you have composers from the romantic and modern era who also composed sonatinas.

I have this book, which I think is pretty good.

BartK

ShiroKuro
Difficulty is very subjective so take this with a grain of salt but here is my general take on sonatinas and easy sonatas:

Easy (approx. RCM 3-5)
Beethoven Sonatina in G major, Anh. 5, no. 1
Beethoven Sonatina in F major, Anh. 5, no. 2
Clementi Sonatina in C major, op. 36, no. 1
Clementi Sonatina in G major, op. 36, no. 2
Diabelli Sonatina in C major, op. 168, no. 3
Diabelli Sonatina in G major, op. 151, no. 1
Haydn Piano Sonata G major Hob. XVI:8
Kuhlau Sonatina in C major, op. 55, no. 1
Lichner Sonatina in C major, op. 4, no. 1
Lichner Sonatina in C major, op. 66, no. 1
Lichner Sonatina in F major, op. 66, no. 2
Lichner Sonatina in G major, op. 66, no. 3
Reinecke Sonatina in C major, op. 136, no. 1
Reinecke Sonatina in G major, op. 136, no. 2
Spindler Sonatina in C major, op. 157, no. 4
Spindler Sonatina in E minor, op. 157, no. 8

Medium (approx. RCM 6-7)
Clementi Sonatina in C major, op. 36, no. 3
Clementi Sonatina in F major, op. 36, no. 4
Clementi Sonatina in G major, op. 36, no. 5
Clementi Sonatina in D major, op. 36, no. 6
Diabelli Sonatina in C major, op. 151, no. 4
Dussek Sonatina in G major, op. 20, no. 1
Dussek Sonatina in F major, op. 20, no. 3
Dussek Sonatina in E-flat major, op. 20, no. 6
Haydn Piano Sonata C major Hob. XVI:1
Haydn Piano Sonata C major Hob. XVI:3
Haydn Piano Sonata D major Hob. XVI:4
Haydn Piano Sonata D major Hob. XVI:5a
Haydn Piano Sonata C major Hob. XVI:7
Haydn Piano Sonata F major Hob. XVI:9
Haydn Piano Sonata C major Hob. XVI:10
Haydn Piano Sonata G major Hob. XVI:11
Haydn Piano Sonata E major Hob. XVI:13
Haydn Piano Sonata D major Hob. XVII: D1
Haydn Piano Sonata G major Hob. XVI:G1
Kuhlau Sonatina in C major, op. 20, no. 1
Kuhlau Sonatina in G major, op. 55, no. 2
Kuhlau Sonatina in C major, op. 55, no. 3
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 1 in C major
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 2 in A major
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 3 in D major
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 4 in B-flat major
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 5 in F major
Mozart Viennese Sonatina no. 6 in C major

Difficult (RCM 8 and higher)
Bartók Sonatina, Sz. 55
Beethoven Sonatina in C major, WoO 51
Beethoven Sonata no. 19 in G minor, op. 49, no. 1
Beethoven Sonata no. 20 in G major, op. 49, no. 2
Kuhlau Sonatina in G major, op. 20, no. 2
Mozart Sonata no. 16 in C major, K. 545

The "difficult" section is relative to the rest of course. After this you start getting into real "grown up" sonatas.

JB_PT

ShiroKuro I just requested that book through my library.

I'm so jealous that you seem to have a lot of music available at your library - is this at your college? I have already worked through the selection of music I'm interested in at my local (county) library...didn't take very long! Thank goodness for IMSLP, and it's so nice to be able to sightread or try stuff out on my iPad before I waste materials printing everything out.

ShiroKuro

BartK thanks! That’s super helpful!

Hmm I was thinking the easy pieces might be a little too hard at this point, given that my goal is sight reading and 40P. But I just checked the score for the first Clementi Sonatina, C major, op. 36, no. 1 and that looks just about right for me, for this purpose …

I was thinking I should start with (IOW go back to) the Music for Millions books. The super easy one is probably too easy but it might be good to work through those, move on to the next MfM book and then move on to these sonatinas. Hmmm

I will talk to my piano teacher before deciding. In the meantime, I’m pretty sure I have that Beethoven Sonatina in G major somewhere, the best thing would be to play one of the MfM pieces and play a sonatina, either this Beethoven or the first Clementi, and see what I think …

ShiroKuro

lilypad Yep, that's the thread!! And you were the one, thank you for reminding me!

I'm going to go see if I can find the first book of Faber's Piano Sonatinas.

@JB_PT yes, the library at my university. They have a massive collection because we have a major music school here, but also they will pretty much get anything I request through Inter-library Loan (although I always make sure to only request things that are held by other libraries in the US).

Generally if I find something I want to work on, I'll buy my own copy. But I like to borrow them first to see if I actually want them. I requested the Microjazz books, and was able to borrow three of them. And thank goodness, because I decided I didn't want them! 😅

ShiroKuro

@lilypad is this the book you were referring to?
www.amazon.com/Piano-Sonatinas-Developing-Original-Keyboard/dp/1616771100/

lilypad

ShiroKuro @lilypad is this the book you were referring to?
www.amazon.com/Piano-Sonatinas-Developing-Original-Keyboard/dp/1616771100/

Yes. If that turns out to be too easy for you, there are also books 2, 3 and 4 of the series. I imagine they gradually increase in difficulty.

ShiroKuro

lilypad thanks Lilypad! Since I don't generally play pieces in the traditional classical repertoire, I doubt the pieces in book 1 will end up being too easy for me. We'll see though, I think I'm going to purchase that one. Well, after my piano lesson (this Wed.) since I want to consult with my teacher first.
🙂