Sonata in A Major #2

I know what you're about to say. "Isn't there already another Sonata in A Major?" It turns out that in the list of RCM songs I had for grade 9, there were two Sonata in A Majors - and I liked them both. (Usually, when I need to pick songs to learn from the RCM book, I listen to them all and write down the ones I like - which are usually several songs, with the exception of this year - and then pick a song from those. But this year when I'm picking ARCT songs, there's way too many songs for me to listen to them all, and I haven't found that many that I like.)
This one, however, has a completely different melody and a different composer. The only things connecting them are that they're both in the key of A major, they're both in the list of RCM songs for the same grade, and they're both on Tea with Liya.

Listening back in 2024, I am actually impressed with how I played this in 2018 compared to some other old recordings, like the Scarlatti Sonata in A Major.


There are probably hundreds of Sonatas in A Major. Usually when composers wrote sonatas back in the classical era, they'd just call it "Sonata in [whatever key it's in]." It seems like Franz Joseph Haydn (the composer of this song) fits into that category.

While I was looking in my music binder to find who wrote this song (I couldn't remember), I paged past the dreaded Sonatina in D Major. Why is it dreaded? When preparing for an RCM exam, I spent months playing it over and over again to get it up to the speed that RCM wanted. Maybe I should have played Fur Elise for that grade like everyone else.

But then again, you won't know which Sonatina in D Major until you find it and listen to it. I don't know if I'm going to post that song. At the time, I really didn't like it. But now I've learned something: out of the things you have to correct on a song, don't leave speed till the last month or you'll be working on it non-stop. It's a very boring process - and I'm glad I'm done it.

Now, I'm sure you have another question for me. "I thought the title of this post was Sonata in A Major. Why are you so busy talking about Sonatina in D major?"