Etude-Sonata (2011)

Guitar

Total duration ca. 14'15"

Three movement work

I. With melancholy

II. Intensely

III. Passionately

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Premiered in November 2012

by Joshua MaGuire

in Nashville, TN

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Listen to a playlist of movements from this work on Soundcloud

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Audio clip by Joshua MaGuire

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Purchase this score from

Peter Dayton Music (ASCAP) for: $15.00

A Sonata in three movements, each movement is built from permutations of a single idea. An etude-like repetition of certain gestures is woven into the fabric of the piece. In the first movement, an elegiac ostinato undergoes different shifts in harmonies and registers. The second movement is a perpetuum mobile that plays with ambiguities between compound and simple triple meters. The final movement’s intensity comes from its widely spaced, full-bodied chords, and from the evolution of a repeated progression. Exploring different textures and recapitulating the Sonata’s opening, the work goes beyond the confines of an etude as an exercise foremost in technique, and builds a comprehensive dramatic arc. The Sonata is dedicated to my dear friend Joshua McGuire.