Sonata in F Major: ii. Allegro scherzando

The Piano Sonata in F Major is a composition in neoclassical style which openly acknowledges its kinship to comparable works in the Viennese tradition of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. The first, second, and last movements of the Sonata in F were composed in 1995, but the "Adagio molto espressivo" was not added until 1998 as plans were being made for publication and it was felt that a contrasting slow movement was needed between the scherzo and finale.

The sole purpose of this sonata is to evoke the musical world of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as vividly as possible, in much the same way that good historical novels, plays, or motion pictures attempt to revisit the past with both authenticity and imagination. It is one of a growing number of works, including several previous keyboard sonatas and a piano concerto, that Dillon Ford composed with a view towards fostering a renaissance in music of the kind that renewed the art, architecture, and literature of Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The "Allegro scherzando" is also a sonata-allegro movement, though its development section masquerades as a trio. The exposition opens with a lilting theme in B-flat major which becomes increasingly animated. Over an Alberti bass a hardy second theme soon appears, intermittently interrupted by forte octaves on the lowered second degree of the dominant key of F major. The closing theme, with colorful horn fifths, retains the dominant tonality over a rocking tonic pedal before melodic octaves lead back smoothly to the beginning of the exposition.