Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Clementi Sonatina Op 36 No 2 3rd Movement Trill Help

Hi all,

Working my way through Clementi and had a question on the trill in the 3rd movement of Sonatina Op 36 No 2.



I had started playing the trill as two notes to the 1/16th notes in the left hand starting with E then F#. I thought the fingering was a bit awkward switching from 2 to 3 on the F# but was fine with that. It seemed to flow. Today I took a closer look at the fingering and it seems to imply that the fingering is 3 then 2 and that would mean it started on F#? So you would play F# at the end of the previous measure and then repeat it to start the trill with F#-E?

I am sooo confused. Regrettably I am current learning without a teacher (Several reasons I won't get into here.) so any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

(BTW I think I am going to get my display name changed to something like ClementiAcolyte. I like Clementi and at the rate I am going I will be playing his works for years. )

You can do a "measured" trill here. F#-E-F#-E-D-E. Fingering 3-2-3-2-1-2 or 2-1-3-2-1-3

As AZNpiano's post indicates, trills in Classical-era music usually - though not always - start on the upper note. Exceptions might be made in this case, for example; when the trill follows a descending passage, one might want to start the trill on the E. I would still opt for starting the trill on the F-sharp, however.

Let's see what others suggest.

Regards,

this is how my book shows the trill

http://forum.pianoworld.com//gallery/42/full/11787.png

Thanks for the replies. Showing my lack of knowledge on trills looking at the picture from earlofmar it looks like the trill notes in right hand are a one for one match with the notes on the left hand. Is that correct? The same appears to be true for AZPiano's post. I was playing E-F# for every sixteenth note in the left hand. Is that too many notes?

Thanks again for the help.

If you play 16th, that would not be a trill anymore. So yes you have to play 32nds. The note on which you start depends on the context. In classic (18th century) music you can have both ways. Often times you use the upper note assuming it is the dissonant one or the main note if the upper one is consonant. There is also the issue of melodic flow, when going down by steps you usually want to avoid starting on the same note as previously though there are numerous exceptions, in Bach and elsewhere.

In this case my personal preference would be to start on E essentially because of 2 reasons: 1-the left hand plays a drone on A, so F sharp is a minor sixth (half) consonant; E is a perfect fifth so as we are playing the Dominant in preparation to the next bar landing on the tonic it is more important to start the beat with the fifth rather than with the minor consonant sixth. 2-Starting on F sharp would indeed break somehow the melodic line and it is fairly audible because the right hand stays on that F sharp during an 8th and the left hand stays on A as well. So starting again on A and F sharp is a bit too much and again produces an effect that is contrary to the harmonic situation. The situation would have been different if the left hand had played another note than A.

The drawback is that since you have a termination on D-E, you have to play 3 notes on the previous note: E-F sharp-E to finish on E and then play the termination D-E thus fianlizing the trill on the perfect fifth, dominant followed by the tonic triad on next bar.

That said given the speed at which you (should) play it, it does not make a breaking difference. So it is more of a discussion for purists (which I admit I am more often than necessary).

When I say the tonic, I mean the local tonic. The piece being in G major, at this place we are in the dominant tonality of D major, so A is the V/V, dominant to D.

And the A-F sharp is a major sixth obviously... must take some coffee to wake me up !

Thanks for all of the help Sidokar! I only understood about half of it but enough to get me going. Gotta start on that music theory one of these days.

At the end what is important is the audible result. The rationale helps to explain the underlying causes but the main criteria is the musicality of the piece. So when you are not sure try different options and see if one is preferable. Sometimes different people will have different preferences and thats why there are also differences in how pro pianists play the same segment. So there is sometimes more than one way to play it.

That said it is important to understand so you become progressively more autonomous and achieve musicianship

You have to understand that realizations of trills (written out above the staff) are the editor's way of executing the ornament. The editor takes into consideration the level and aptitude of the person playing this sonatina. Most students playing long trills for the first time probably cannot play very fast or evenly, so the measured trill solution is the best answer, and most logical.

When you get better at piano, you are free to play more repercussions.

Why?