Sonata in F Major: iv. Andante passionato

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 "Andante passionato," a hybrid sonata-rondo in two-four time, commences with a tuneful theme at the octave played by both hands. A rapid-fire transition in thirty-second notes ensues which modulates to the surprising new key of D major. At this point, the principal theme of the first movement is reintroduced in a vivaciously fresh guise and extended with new material whose melodies sing above oscillating bass octaves. This leads directly to a new theme which briefly recalls the "military" rhythmic motif of the first movement, but which grows increasingly calm as it prepares harmonically for a varied return of the opening theme in F major. After some surprising modulatory activity, the central "development" section begins in d minor, recalling at once the second theme of the first movement's exposition and the "military" motif, which occurs now in double-dotted rhythm. A brilliant retransition in sixths which comes to rest on a dominant seventh of F major leads back to the last complete statement of the opening theme. This time, instead of returning to the original transitional material, a new transition derived from the ideas that previously followed the second theme now precedes the second theme's final return, which is heralded by a dramatic double trill and scales in contrary motion. The theme is restated at length, but pauses unexpectedly on the dominant. This momentary delay is rhetorically purposeful, for a brilliant codetta instantly ensues which restates the first theme in thirty-second notes then rises like a victory banner towards the final cadence.