For my first performance piece I performed the fourth movement from Sonata Number 8 called Allegro by Giovanni Battista Pescetti

There are a number of perfect cadences in the piece, these give the impression that the piece has ended. The first of these can be found just fourteen bars into the piece. Although the piece is in the key of C, everything up until the first perfect cadence is written in G major, as every F is sharpened so therefore the chord at the perfect cadence is a G major chord (first inversion.)

The piece then continues in the same way that it started, the left hand imitates the right hand for four bars and then continues in G major following the pattern of a full bar of semi quavers in the right hand. For the main body of the piece, the left hand consists of two quavers and a crotchet in a bar, or a full bar of quavers, or one crotchet and one quaver in a bar.

In bar 23, again there is a key change from G major, to the relative minor of the key that the piece is written in, which is A minor. This is done cleverly as Pescetti uses the accidentals from the keys of both A minor and G major (F sharp and G sharp) this is done through two bars, until the F sharp in G major is naturalised making the new key A minor.

The piece only stays in A minor for a few bars and then alternates between keys by the use of lots of accidentals, until it reaches the second perfect cadence in the key of E major. The composer makes the change into E major in a descending scale run from bar 51 by the use of F, D C and G sharps. This perfect cadence, again gives the impression that the piece has come to a close.

After this perfect cadence the opening of the piece is then repeated (14 bars) however instead of modulating to G major, the piece stays in C major, as it started in, and finishes on a perfect cadence of C.

When this piece was written, it wouldn’t have been written for piano but for harpsichord  therefore it has been arranged for piano. The arranger has made it easier for me to play by adding finger patterns to the score, this makes the piece flow more easily. The piece is written around 3 octaves on the piano however uses nearly every note in these octaves due to all the key changes.