I was wondering how people approach learning a sonata?
The only complete ones I've done before are the Mozart K545 and Beethoven op.49 (the G major one).
I learnt them a movement at a time.
I'm currently working on Mozart K570 (among other things). As it happens I'm doing it backwards as i got a bit bogged down with the first movement and switched to the 3rd. This is a longer term project and I'm doing some lesser things alongside. I was wondering with a larger work whether people tend to work on more than one movement at a time or more than one. Obviously there will be a point when you add another while keeping on top of the first one but I did wonder whether it would be a good idea to add a second movement sooner rather than later.
The only other consideration is working on other things at the same time which I think is probably good anyway to avoid getting bogged down with one style.
Hope that makes some sense.

I tend to start with the first movement until its, say, 'halfway' there, then introduce another one, then when thats part learned, the third one.
In the case of K570 , the first movement is the hardest, mainly because of the two little awkward fingering bits at bar 58-62 and 188-192, otherwise the whole sonata is not difficult .
Make sure you play the semiquavers in bars 12,13,14 (and similar places) as semiquavers, I've lost count of the number of pianists who play them as quavers !

By the way this sonata also exists with a violin part so is in most editions of the 'Piano & Violin' Sonatas as well, (not 'Violin/Piano' sonatas.) If you have a violinist handy.......

In general I prefer to work on 3-4 pieces at different stages at any time (for variety's sake), so I normally learn one movement at a time and, rarely, two at most (maybe one fast and one slow).

I don't always approach a sonata in order either, just start with whichever ones I feel like tackling first. Once I'm quite "secured" with the notes, then I start on the next one.

I am currently learning my first complete oboe sonata. I started with the second movement because I like it best. When I knew all the notes in this (but it was nowhere near polished) I started learning the first and a few bits of the third (the third has lots of long runs so I just played these to try and get my fingers round them). I didn't really start looking seriously at the third movement until both the first and the second were more or less finished.

I learn the whole thing roughly, then concentrate on one movement at a time to get it right.

I don't usually learn whole sonatas, but when I do I usually start with the first movement and concentrate on that until I get it right. I study other pieces at the same time, of course, but generally not other movements of the same sonata.

Oh, and I generally learn the fast movements first, because I'm weird like that. But that's just me.

When I learnt Mozart K.330 I did the first movement, then the third one, then the second one. I don't know if that has helped me or not...I guess I didn't really think about it at the time.

But with my current one, Beethoven's Op.2 No.1 (in F minor), I'm working through the movements in order.

I enjoy that one, partcularly rattling through the last movement! (The concluding downward arpeggio is easier split betwen the two hands, crossing over as required). Couple of awkward 'countings' in the slow movement. For fun I once tried to play 1st and last movements in F sharp minor !

I usually start with the last movement because if I can manage that one it generally means I can handle the whole sonata. When I have the notes of the third movement covered I start learning the notes of the first movement while I'm working on the third movement in detail. I usually don't start the slow movement until I have both the first and third to a reasonable standard but that is only because I hate most slow movements .

with your typical 3 movement Sonata, I learn the first movement on its own and the second and third movements together. usually i do start at the beginning because first movements are usually the ones i find need the most work.

I learn one movement until I get to a really difficult part... then I say "Hmmm... think I'll make a start on one of the other movements now for a change"

Then at the end I have all the hard parts to learn because I kept putting them off

Probably not the most efficient

I am learning music to a deadline at the moment (Mozart Piano and Wind Quintet) so what I do is to look through the score and pin point the bits where (brackets quote the examples):

- I blatantly can't sight read (3rd movement, triplets are too fast)
- The rhythm is awkward (1st movement, too many hemi-demi-semi quavers alongside semi-ones)
- The harmony is unexpected (2nd and 3rd movement, have yet to figure out what that is about)

and work on them first until I get it at speed, then just play through the rest at speed. There isn't a lot of point spending all your time practising things that you know you can do anyway; better spend a bit of time on the things you can't do.

Of course, if you are not working to a deadline then by all means do whatever, although my approach (heavily influenced by my music direction trainings) is to learn the score before learning to play it.