This is a no-frills sonatina movement. The first couple phrases got in my head on the subway and I wrote them and the rest down with as little reflection as possible, always trying to go for the most obvious solution. Right now it seems like the only way for me to keep things from getting too absurd or too condensed is to write very fast and freely resort to cliches. With that in mind, I am proud to have rounded off a complete movement that does what it’s supposed to do, utterly insubstantial though it may be.

The style here is, as usual, “things I think I heard in Stravinsky, but less tasteful.” Actually, this seems to me to be a secondhand imitation of Stravinsky, by way of some of the lesser American composers in the 40’s. If I consciously had anyone in mind, it was, believe it or not, Gail Kubik, whom you may know, if you know me personally, as the guy who wrote this score. I also have copies of a sonatina and a sonata he wrote, as well as a collection of short occasional pieces. I’d post the scores here but it’d be copyright violation, despite their being quite difficult to find nowadays and certainly impossible to purchase new. Maybe someday I’ll feel reckless and just post them. Anyway, they all sound kinda like each other, and my little sonatina movement sounds a little like them all. To me, at least.

Here’s the audio of my piece.

There’s a score but it’ll take me a while to clean it up, get all the accidentals to be pretty, and put in markings and whatnot. I don’t feel like doing that now, but I’ll do it eventually and put it here.