Don't worry, this will be it from me for a while....

This is a short sonatina and I like the second movement very much; it's just a real sweet little piece.

Clementi - Sonatina Op.36 No.6 - 1: Allegro con spirito

Clementi - Sonatina Op.36 No.6 - 2: Allegretto spiritoso

Hi Monica,
I know these piece very well, though I have not played them myself yet. But I have heard them very often during several recitals of piano students. You play them well in summary. I have only a few nitpicks (only to the first movement):
1) there is no quarter-break between the first and the second part (bar 38)
2) from bar 48 on you increase immensely the tempo, in bar 52 you are nearly back to your old tempo (is this intentional?)
3) In bar 74 you make nearly a fermata of a quarter again, the upbeat comes in too late, and then from bar 75 you increase quite a lot the tempo (intention?)

O.k., today seems to be the day of tempo-critique (see Chris remarks to my Bach-prelude).
But nevertheless, I have enjoyed your performances very much.

I heard a tempo shift at 2:44. Not sure if that is the same Andreas meant - did not check with score.
But don't worry, you always pass it off as rubato

It is a sweet little piece indeed, I like both parts. Very well played although there were moments where the articulation could be a bit sharper and the passage work is a little stiff in places. The performance could benefit from a better staccato.

Oh shoot, I didn't hear any of those tempo fluctuations when I was playing. Guess I'm not done recording like I thought I was. I'll have to re-record this one, but after some time spent working with my metronome! Thank you guys for pointing this out to me. In return, I'll share with you a quote I like that refers to tempo:

"The same passions in man and woman nonetheless differ in tempo; hence man and woman do not cease misunderstanding one another” ~Friedrich Nietzsche

My view on this, as an IT person, is that men and women are basically incompatible. You can try on your own risk, but it's not guaranteed to work

And that's what makes life interesting.

Heh, heh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't like these inter-section gaps.
Yes, and similarly (but not quite as much) in bar 22. It feels as though, having lost time by inserting a gap after the 3rd chord of bar 74 or 22, you try to compensate by speeding up a little, but only until you've caught up with an imaginary metronome.

There is another naughty gap before the 4th beat of bar 85, and although you don't actually make the same gap at the equivalent place earlier on (bar 33), somehow I almost sense you wanting to make it but are deliberately stopping yourself. Maybe I'm just imagining it.

In bar 2 you play the 3rd beat A 8th note, and in bar 3 the 1st and 3rd beat Bs, exactly as printed, i.e. staccato, but I'm wondering whether this might be a transcription mistake, it just doesn't sound right with them that short. Perhaps they were originally staccato quarter notes (equivalent to 8th note plus 8th rest), then re-printed as 8ths with someone forgetting to take the dots out.

Does your edition, like mine (Peters) have a difference between bars 4 and 60? Perhaps another editorial mistake; I don't really think they should be played differently (and indeed you don't).

Second movement:

I'm not sure but I suspect that the fermata which is printed on the double bar line at the Fine is part of the Fine marking, and is not meant to tell us to make a break the first time through.

At the end, just before the D.C., I think the first chord of the 2nd last bar (BD) is too long, and the first chord of the last bar (DF#) is too short. Seems to be about two and a half 8th beats in both cases.

Thank you for the detailed critique Rainer (and Andreas). I'm actually satisfied with the second movement here. I've been playing this piece for so long, that I doubt I could play it any differently and it would be just a waste of time trying to re-record it because I'm sure it would come out exactly the same.

Regarding the first movement - I can be a little naughty at times, so it makes sense that my gaps are naughty too!
Seriously, I will check all the points you make against my score. I plan on re-recording either tomorrow night or Wednesday night. Wish me luck!

p.s. that 'other' issue you told me about - I'm very embarrassed, but I've fixed it now. Thank you

I made another attempt at this one today. Hopefully my last! My goal was to iron out the tempo fluctuations in my previous version (after spending some quality-time with my metronome ). I know everyone is a little tired of my Clementi - so am I - but I had to get this done with once and for all.

Clementi - Sonatina Op.36 No.6 - 1: Allegro con spirito

Cute little sonatina and very competent playing!

What gave you that idea? Was it something we said? Oh my Daaarling Clementeee!

Certainly some of the fluctuations in tempo have been fixed, which is very good, and I think you've also slightly lengthened those phrase end notes in bars 2 and 3 for me, or am I imagining it?

Unfortunately I also have some negative comments:

A hesitation has crept in before the 4th beats of bars 16 and 17 (between the G# and the B). If you don't notice them by listening to the RH, they're more obvious when you listen to the LH. A similar hesitation exists between the F# and G in bar 6, and yet in bar 5, between the G and A all is well. These things are better on the repeat, though.

There is hesitation also at the boundary between bar 31 and 32, and 35 and 36.

I'm sorry to mention the following again, but to me it is an important issue. I'm disappointed that you seem to disagree with Andreas and me about not sticking in unwritten rests at the ends of sections. Every bar in this piece has 4 beats in it, and that goes for bar 38 too. This bar happens to have a "double bar" repeat sign in it, but not at the end of it, it is three quarters of the way through. You are not meant to pretend that the double bar symbol incorporates a bar line and to imagine that they forgot to print the 4th beat rest (even though, of course, often repeat signs do happen to coincide with bar lines). I do understand that you want to take a breath between sections, and also between phrases (such as for example in bars 22 and 74), and this is right and proper, but it is possible to, and you should, breathe in time. Don't make time, by splicing in silence, instead take time, by shortening existing notes if necessary. Often it isn't necessary even to take time, you can convey the feeling of a breath simply by phrasing off, i.e. by not going for a strong 3rd beat, but fading down the volume a little.

A couple of things I should perhaps have mentioned last time: The first may just be editorial, but I have the last note (F#) of bar 8 (and 64) incorporated into the same phrase mark as covers the following two bars, implying, I think, that it should be slurred to the first note (G) of bar 9 (and 65), but you detach it. This is really just a variation or embellishment of how bar 4 leads into bar 5, and there the F# is also slurred to the G. The other thing is more a matter of personal preference. If you (as I think you should) phrase off bar 38 for breath, both when going back to bar 1 and on to bar 39, then you would also do so in bar 90 (the last bar of the piece), were you to take the repeat. But I think you should also phrase off at the very end, and not override the printed staccato on the final chord by holding it on for longer.

Thank you for taking time with this, Rainer. I've taking out a bit of the break between sections A and B via editing, but really I still like there to be a break between these sections and also the repeat. It's just the way feel the piece.

Topic change: btw - the next Mompou pieces in my new books are really nice.

This is a fundamental and foundational principle of musical expression and has every analogy to reading with proper inflection. If one considers how a wood-wind player phrases their individual part but stays precisely synchronized with the rest of the orchestra, one should get the picture. Additionally, to phrase musically is NOT the same as observing the slur lines in a score, though it sometimes (rarely) is the same. I could give countless examples of what would be nothing more than poor musical speech, stuttering and mid-"syllable"-stops, if one were to try to follow the slur lines of a score. In these two ideas mentioned, together with meter and rhythm (and for pianists voicing) are the pillars of musicality, and by such is one's musicality made plain. On repeat signs (as well as da signo, al coda, etc.), they are always nothing more than a time-saver for the composer. They may sometimes (even often) correspond to the seams of a work's form but not always. IMO one should think of the score prepared without any repeat signs when deciding how they wish to interpret the score. (One last item on form: repeats are acknowleged in formal analysis, but do not convey formal significance. That is to say a work that has the form: A, A, B, A, or even A, A', B A, are nonetheless ternary forms (ABA).)

Oh dear, I didn't like the sound of "a bit of", and I just knew before even listening to it again that I was going to hate it. And I did. This change has made it worse. I hope you still have the previous version to go back to. Sorry to be so uncompromising on this issue, but the continuation is either in time or it isn't. I obviously strongly prefer it to be in time, but if it isn't going to be, then the next best substitute is for it at least to stay in sync with the beats. I would rather have a whole beat added (as you had) than a fraction of one.
I know, and I accept that you genuinely mean it, and aren't just using this mantra as the universal excuse for a multitude of sins which it can become. What I wanted was to persuade you that the way you feel it is wrong.

Generally the way one feels a piece will lead one to take certain liberties, and if these liberties stay within reasonable boundaries of interpretation, that's fine. But stray outside those boundaries, and it becomes a mistake. Even if it's a deliberate mistake, it becomes indistinguishable by the listener from a genuine mistake. In my view you have strayed here, and I'm as sure as I can be that if you were to play this piece like this in an exam or in a c, in a co, in a c (no, I can't bring myself to say the C-word), then you would be marked down for these injected rests.

I think in a piece like this which for the most part is pretty well metronomic throughout, it is very difficult to argue convincingly that there is an implied fermata in bar 38 similar to the explicit one(s) in bar 56. Could it be that your feeling of how to continue after bar 38 (be it to bar 1 or 39) is overly influenced by bar 56?

Anyway, enough of that before it all ends in tears.
Now this is something I do like the sound of! I look forward to hearing them. I'm amazed you can find the time for this with everything else that's going on (thinking of the C-word again).

Too long a pause, not enough pause.....I don't understand what you mean at all! Frankly, I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I should have kept the other version because that break between sections was exactly how I like it. And jeez, nobody has ever said that they 'hate' one of my recordings before, at least to my face, so that's an unpleasant first . But I do not believe that this recording is as bad as you make it seem. However, we all are entitled to our own opinion, and that's what we want to encourage here in the forum, so thank you for your comments even if I don't agree with them. Also, yes, I did accidentally delete the original file but I do still have the raw file so I will have to work with that because I don't have time to make yet another recording.