How the Blues has changed

Demonstrate the development of instrumental style and technique through a comparison of two instrumental or vocal works selected from the period to 1820

I have chosen Scarlatti’s Sonata in D minor K5 and Beethoven’s Sonata in F minor Op 2, as I enjoyed playing both pieces, and this essay gave me the opportunity to investigate further. Although there was less than 60 years between the two sonatas, the differences between both the composers and their compositions are vast, as I hope to demonstrate.

Scarlatti was composing during the Baroque period. The Classical period developed out of the Baroque period, and Beethoven’s music was written at the peak of the Classical period. Both composers furthered the development of the keyboard sonata in their respective period, but although both pieces are titled ‘sonatas for keyboard instruments’, the sonata style developed considerably from Scarlatti’s time to Beethoven’s. The Baroque composers generally wrote shorter, less ...