Rondo

5.10 Improvise an answering phrase

Study Pleyel’s Rondo in C. Learn its opening theme from its structure: bar 4 ends on C (tonic), bar 8 on G (dominant), and the opening material returns at bar 13 before the C-major close in bar 16. Then improvise your own answering phrase to the first four bars. At the keyboard: improvise an answer to a four-bar phrase.

Ideas

• Improvising
• Period: antecedent and consequent
• Memorising from structure
• Binary form

Theory cards

• Improvising an answer phrase
• Memorising from structure
• Rounded binary form

Technique

• C major scale, hands separately, 2 octaves