Lesson 77: Handel Sonata in A minor, HWV 362 — Allegro

• Learn the Allegro (movement II) of HWV 362.
• Choose an articulation pattern that drives the line forward without flattening the figuration.
• Hear the contrast with the opening Larghetto — from lament to confident motion.

• Lesson 76 — HWV 362 Larghetto.
• Lesson 41 — double tonguing.

• Cross-movement affect contrast.
• Articulation pattern selection at speed.

Handel's fast movements are not virtuoso displays. They are arguments at speed.

After the Larghetto's lament, the Allegro of HWV 362 turns the affect on its head: confident, driven, propulsive sixteenth-note motion that runs from the opening to the cadence with very few interruptions. The piece's rhetorical work is to answer the Larghetto — the same minor key, but the affect has changed.

The opening

The Allegro opens with a turning figure around A — a stepwise descent followed by an ascent, sixteenth notes throughout. The motion never quite stops until the cadence.

The articulation choice

The sixteenth-note motion at performance tempo (quarter = 100 to 110) is on the edge of single tonguing. Double tonguing from Lesson 41 makes it sit comfortably; du-gu alternation works well here. Pick the pattern in rehearsal and use it consistently across the movement.

Two specific articulation choices to test:

• All double-tongued. Even, mechanical, fast. Use when the line is purely running motion.
• Slur pairs of sixteenths, tongue the next pair. Adds shape to running figures. Use when the contour invites differentiation.

Most performers mix the two within the movement. Mark the choices in the score before practising; do not improvise them at speed.

The contrast with the Larghetto

Both movements are in A minor. The Larghetto laments; the Allegro asserts. What changes:

• Tempo: 50 → 100 (doubled).
• Surface motion: half notes and quarters → sixteenths.
• Direction: descents (lament) → turns and rises (assertion).
• Ornament density: distributed → minimal (the speed leaves no room).

The two movements together establish the sonata's emotional range. When you assemble all four movements in Lesson 78, this contrast is the architecture.

Drill — the hardest sixteenth-note sequence

The longest stretch of unbroken sixteenths in the movement. Practise it isolated, slow, with the metronome on the sixteenth.

Practice plan

Sessions 1–2 — map the movement at half tempo

Read end-to-end at quarter = 60, mark the hardest two bars, mark the articulation choices in your score.

Sessions 3–5 — hardest-bar drill, double tonguing

The marked bars, slow with the sixteenth-note metronome subdivision, until each plays the same way three times in a row at tempo.

Sessions 6–7 — chunks, then end-to-end

First half as one chunk, second half as another, then complete movement at performance tempo. Record the complete run.

Now play these

Handel: Sonata in A minor, HWV 362

The library entry contains the Larghetto and Adagio; the Allegro must come from your score.

Handel: Sonata in D minor, HWV 367a — Vivace

A companion fast movement by the same composer. Same idiom, different key. Useful as a comparison piece for the articulation choices.

When the Allegro plays at quarter = 100 with a consistent articulation pattern, the hardest-bar sequence clean at tempo, and an audible affect contrast with the Larghetto from Lesson 76, move on to Lesson 78.