Allegro assai

Georg (Jiří) Benda was one of the leading Bohemian composers at the Saxe-Gotha court — a contemporary of C.P.E. Bach whose keyboard sonatas helped carry the empfindsamer Stil (sensitive style) into early-Classical writing. The Allegro assai finale of his Sonata in G is sturdy galant material: clear two-hand textures, periodic phrasing and a confident tonic-dominant harmonic frame.

Technically this finale tests Classical evenness at speed. The right hand carries running quavers and small ornamental figures; the left hand alternates between Alberti-style broken triads and walking quaver basses. The student must keep the running line clean, articulate cadence ornaments without slowing the pulse, and balance the hands so the melody projects above an active bass.

Two pitfalls. First, students push the tempo past where the left hand can speak — allegro assai still needs every quaver to land. Second, the cadence ornaments are sometimes hurried into the next bar rather than placed within their beat; train the trill until it feels relaxed, then add it back at tempo.

Listening: any clean PD recording of C.P.E. Bach or Haydn early sonatas (Musopen, IMSLP audio) calibrates the right early-Classical poise that Benda's writing inhabits.