Sonatina in C: Andante (Op. 20 No. 1, 2nd movement)

Background

Friedrich Kuhlau was born in northern Germany in 1786 and lost the sight of one eye in a childhood accident. In 1810 he moved to Copenhagen, partly to avoid being called up into Napoleon's armies, and he stayed in Denmark for the rest of his life, becoming one of its leading composers. His music for the play Elverhøj (1828) is still among the best-loved Danish works for the stage. In 1825 he visited Beethoven, who wrote a punning canon on his name, "Kühl, nicht lau" ("cool, not lukewarm").

Pianists know him above all for his sonatinas: short sonatas in the clear Classical style of Mozart and Clementi, written with learners in mind. The Sonatina in C, Op. 20 No. 1, is the first of a set of three, and this Andante is its middle movement, a short song in F major between the faster first and last movements in C.

How to practise it

This version is 16 bars in 6/8, with an upbeat. Count it as two big beats in a bar, three eighth notes in each.

It falls into four four-bar phrases. Bars 1 to 4 state the tune; bars 5 to 8 move to C major; bars 9 to 12 grow tense, reaching a dark chord in bar 11 that both hands repeat before it settles onto C in bar 12; and bars 13 to 16 bring back the tune and end in F.

In bar 1 the left hand begins with a rest and then repeats soft chords:

The tune is decorated with quick pickups: a dotted sixteenth note and a thirty-second note leading into the next beat, as in the upbeat itself (F, A) and at the end of bars 2 and 6. Keep the short note very short and light, and attach it to the note that follows rather than the one before.

The trickiest spot is bar 15, a run of twelve thirty-second notes climbing in pairs: G, F sharp, A, G, B flat, A, and on up to E and D. It is two matching groups of six, so one fingering serves both:

Practise it in this slower rhythm first, then in pairs, then at full speed. Move the hand up between the groups, from A to C, so the second group starts on finger 2 just as the first did.

For speed, set the metronome to tick eighth notes: 80 a minute, then 100, then 132, which matches the app's full speed of 66 quarter notes. Let the left hand rock gently and give the melody a singing tone, as if it were written for a voice.

Sonatinas like this one are where the toward the sonatina unit is heading.