I have sometimes thought in this forum that most people were only interested mainstream composers, viz. Chopin, Bach, Rach, and Scriabin, , and little inclined to comment on something different. Recently it seems to be much better though. I'd like to think I am doing my bit to bend peoples' ears towards unusual or obscure repertoire (as indeed some others do, more so than in the past).


I guess there could many many ingenuous solutions to this bar from hell. But as you say many might not work at speed. If it was a recurring pattern then it would require drastic measures, but as it's just a lone bar I found it easier to BS through it than to torture myself


That's quite alright. I find myself developing some real strange fingerings now and then which nonetheless feel entirely comfortable. And I remember a former teacher saying she used some "stupid" fingerings here and there. Whatever works for you.

Well, I am always pleased to hear something new, although I can't say that I will always be able to muster intelligent comments on it. Perhaps there is a certain reluctance to comment on a piece one doesn't know.

:) In a place like this it's probably mainly down to what works for you.

I think, fortunately, that most teachers these days have moved on from the Victorian classical rulers-across-the-backs-of-the-hands technique and adopted the pragmatic modern approach of "do what works, as long as you don't injure yourself"

Really a nice and interesting sonatina with interesting harmonical moments.
To 1st mv.: all is played very well here, I think.
To 2nd mv.: also nicely played. May be you could think about the staccato forming of the repeating notes from bar 5 on. It seems not to be consequent, but may be that´s intentional.
To 3rd mv.: nice lively movement and I like the moment when comes the a-major chord after all these long runnings. Here you should pay much more attention to the staccato-prescriptions IMHO. Figures like f.ex. in bar 1-4 (uppervoice) should be played consequently with the staccato-eigth at the end through the whole piece. At the beginning you still play them clearly, but later the articulation becomes more and more wrong respective unclear.
Here I also have used the score from imslp to follow your recordings, btw: http://imslp.org/wiki/Sonatina_(Freitas ... %C3%ADs_de)

I finally got a chance to listen to these. I like them. They are full of vitality. A rather sunny Iberian sound.

I'm not sure that I would think of them as "slight". The movements (particularly 1 and 2) are indeed brief, but they are complete and concise. As such, they would make excellent student pieces -- and students need well conceived performances like this to listen to. (Good performances of many of the intermediate and early advance level pieces are not always easy to come by. I'm always recommending recordings on this site to my students.) Obviously, that last movement is going to be for a much more advanced student than required for the first two. As I followed the score the first time I noticed that "horror story" moment from which you shared the "impossible measure" as soon as a scrolled onto that page.

The only thing that you might want to consider is in the second movement. First, the staccatos seem to be a bit short and cliped for the character. I wonder if more the "classical" meaning of staccato (half of the value - eighth note eighth rest) might be called for since he does have them under a slur and should they be more consistent throughout.

The other thing is in measure 11, the C on beat 3 is still part of the accompaniment and the following 8th note Ab begins the new phrase. You might want to try differentiating the sound so the the melody does not sound as if it is C Ab...

Great job.

Scott

Thanks Andreas and Scott. I'm sure there are little things to improve - aren't there always !
I would spend more time on it if it was Bach... but now that I managed to get the final mvt halfway decent, this will have to do.

Great to hear this little piece! So much harmonic action. Good playing! Reminds me a little bit of a composer I used to play for Eurythmy classes, Leopold van der Pals. Thanks!

Thanks Jeremiah !
This little piece is getting more acclaim here than I'd hoped for. Somehow I had half expected nobody to like it (as occasionally, and understandably, happens with my strange choice of repertoire).
I'd never heard about Leopold van der Pals. An interesting and prolific composer !