Sonata Forms

Sonata forms? In the plural? But there's just one sonata form, right?

Well, yes and no. It's complicated. Like many things, it depends on your perspective.

As we go through our music studies, we might first encounter sonata form in miniature in the sonatinas we play for Level 3 piano. We might learn a sonata by Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven as we become more proficient in piano playing. In the RCM music history courses, we encounter sonata form in many of the pieces for Level 9, 10, and ARCT:

Two of my mother’s volumes of piano sonatas, purchased in the Netherlands, brought with her when she immigrated to Canada. Photo by Janice Kerkkamp

F.J. Haydn: String Quartet in C Major, op. 76, no. 3 (“Emperor Quartet”), 1st and 4th movements

*W.A. Mozart: Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K 525, 1st movement

*L. van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, 1st and 4th movements

*F.J. Haydn: Symphony No. 104 in D Major (“London), 1st and 4th movements

*W.A. Mozart: Piano Concerto in G Major, K 453, 1st and 2nd movements (first movement concerto form, which is sonata form with a double exposition)

*W.A. Mozart: The Marriage of Figaro, Overture (modified sonata form) and “Cosa sento!”

*L. van Beethoven: Piano Sonata in C Minor, op. 13 (“Pathétique”), 1st movement

L. van Beethoven: String Quartet in C# Minor, op. 131, 7th movement

F. Schubert: Piano Quintet in A Major, D 667 (“Trout”), 1st movement

*Felix Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E Minor, op. 64, 1st and 3rd movements

*P.I. Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture

G. Mahler: Symphony No. 4 in G Major, 1st movement

A. Berg: Wozzeck, Act 2, Scene 1

A. Webern: Symphony, Op. 21, 1st movement

B. Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra, 1st and 5th movements

*required listening; the other pieces listed are recommended listening to supplement the required movements of those pieces.

We begin analyzing sonata form in Harmony & Counterpoint Level 10, and continue analyzing more advanced sonata movements in ARCT Analysis.

What is sonata form? Basically, it's this:

(Introduction – optional)

Exposition

First theme or theme group – in the home key

Bridge – initiates the move to a new key

Second theme or theme group – in the new key (usually dominant or relative major)

Codetta – confirms the new key

(The Exposition is usually repeated.)

Development – the motives from the exposition are manipulated; the development ends with a dominant preparation for the home key

Recapitulation

First theme or theme group – in the home key

Bridge – often altered to stay in the home key

Second theme or theme group – in the home key

Codetta – confirms the home key

(Coda – optional)

However, as we work our way through the sonata movements we analyze for ARCT Analysis, we soon discover that many of them stray from this basic form. The second theme (or theme group) might be in an unexpected key (and might not even be a new theme; it might be the first theme in a new key, making this a monothematic exposition). Motives from the first theme might reappear in the codetta. The development might not contain any themes from the exposition but have completely new melodic ideas. The dominant preparation may be for an unexpected key. There might be a false recapitulation before the real one. And in the recapitulation, just about anything can happen: the themes (and bridge) can be altered (including shortening or lengthening, or being in a key other than the home key), presented in a different order, or even omitted altogether. The coda can be extremely long, introduce new themes or use prior thematic material, and even serve as a kind of second development.

What's going on here?

According to Charles Rosen in his book Sonata Forms (revised edition 1988), “it is a mistake to view the history of sonata forms as the development of a single form from a single binary pattern. There was no standard form until much later than is generally accepted, and...the evolution of this later standard first-movement form cannot be seen in isolation. It must be seen in the context of other forms like overture, aria, concerto, rondo, and minuet. 'Sonata' is a technique of creating a new texture and a new articulation for all these forms.” That's what he says in the Preface to the Revised Edition. In the original Preface he wrote, “The title of this book is plural. That is meant to emphasize that what was eventually to become the canonic type of sonata form developed along with other forms, which influenced each other and were, in fact, interdependent.”

Rosen describes various forms – binary, ternary, minuet, aria, slow-movement, ritornello, and concerto – and then demonstrates how these forms were used and developed in the 18th century to form the basis of sonata forms. He points out that the treatises in which the “standard” sonata form was first presented (in the first half of the 19th century) were not intended as a means of understanding the music of the past but as models for the composition of new works.

In fact, Rosen goes on to say that “sonata is less a form or set of forms than a way of conceiving and dramatizing the articulation of forms” (page 97). On page 181, he writes, “Sonata style is essentially a coherent set of methods of setting the contours of a range of forms into high relief and resolving them symmetrically.” On page 244, we are given a more specific description of this sonata style: “The two principal sources of musical energy are dissonance and sequence. On a large scale dissonance is by far the more powerful. To keep a piece going, the early eighteenth century relied chiefly on sequence – a harmonic movement with the propulsive force of rhythmic repetition. The extension of dissonance to the level of the large structure, however, is largely the invention of sonata style and it is the dramatic tension of the prolongation of this dissonance with its balancing resolution that is the quality common to all the various sonata forms.”

Sonata Forms contains many musical excerpts and describes them in detail. There are separate chapters on motif and function, exposition, development, recapitulation, and codas, giving examples of various treatments of these. There is a separate chapter on Beethoven and Schubert, and the final chapter is about sonata form after Beethoven. We begin to see just how flexible “sonata form” really is.

So what do we do with all this information? Should we even teach the “standard” sonata form?

Yes. One has to start somewhere. But I do think we need to emphasize that just about anything can happen in a sonata movement. The great composers will take a “standard” form and shape it as they see fit. After all, we often talk about Haydn's wit and humour in his music, Mozart's supreme melodic gift and his fine sense of drama in his opera music, and Beethoven's fiery temperament and disregarding of rules. Surely we can expect these composers to apply these qualities to their exploration of sonata form(s)!

All of the pieces listed above contain links to youtube performances. I encourage you to listen to them to explore different treatments, from 1784 to 1943, of sonata form.