NEW KEYBOARD SONATINAS

During my forty plus years as an active piano teacher I was always on the lookout
for new material. And as a composer, the idea of writing my own material often
occurred to me but I never did much, if anything, about it at the time. It was only
recently - after retiring from teaching - that I had the idea of not only creating new
material for students, but that I would also fulfill my long-standing wish to revisit,
stylistically, an earlier compositional era in so doing. This is, of course, something I do
regularly to sharpen my skills, having written many 'classic' ragtime pieces,
preludes and fugues for both piano and organ, reminiscent of J.S. Bach as well as solo guitar pieces reminiscent of composers such as Fernando Sor and Mauro Guiliani.
The fruits of these labors are amply represented elsewhere on this site. There's something about writing music without the "safety net" of more recent musical styles and fashions - as a colleague once described my penchant for writing in "older styles" - that makes one stronger in the long run. When something is 'out of place,' it glares and growls at you! 'Common Practice Period,' music - as divergent as are its 'styles,' - is a well-mined area; facile justifications, explanations and esoteric mumbo-jumbo fall flat in such circumstances.

My love of Franz Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809) knows no bounds. I fondly remember an early piano teacher, Esther Gilodo, a Russian immigrant sitting at her Bechstein piano with her pet poodle (with whom she communicated in French and Russian) describing Haydn as an "absolute gem." Over time I came to agree.

 The Sonatinas are presented here in actual order of composition, not pedagogically. Technically, they are for the most part playable by advanced beginning to middle grade students and would make suitable student recital pieces. The recordings on this page are complete recordings, played by a harpsichord. Of course, they are also suited to the modern piano as well as the organ (sans pedals), hence the title New 'Keyboard' Sonatinas.

It is my fondest wish that these Sonatinas are received with as much love and affection as I felt when writing them, and that they provide students, teacher, and audiences alike with many hours of pleasure and delight.

Richard White,
Tucson, Arizona
March 2007
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