Sonata Form - Defining 'sonata Form'

Defining 'sonata Form'

According to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, sonata form is "the most important principle of musical form, or formal type, from the Classical period well into the 20th century". As a formal model it is usually best exemplified in the first movements of multi-movement works from this period, whether orchestral or chamber, and has, thus, been referred to frequently as "first-movement form" or "sonata-allegro form" (since the typical first movement in a three- or four-movement cycle will be in allegro tempo). However, as what Grove, following Charles Rosen, calls a "principle"—a typical approach to shaping a large piece of instrumental music—it can be seen to be active in a much greater variety of pieces and genres, from minuet to concerto to sonata-rondo. It also carries with it expressive and stylistic connotations: "sonata style", for Donald Tovey as for other theorists of his time, was characterized by drama, dynamism, and a "psychological" approach to theme and expression.

Although the Italian term sonata often refers to a piece in sonata form, it is essential to separate the two. As the title for a single-movement piece of instrumental music—the past participle of suonare, "to sound," as opposed to cantata, the past participle of cantare, "to sing"—"sonata" covers many pieces from the Baroque and mid-18th century that are not "in sonata form". Conversely, in the late 18th century or "Classical" period, the title "sonata" is typically given to a work composed of three or four movements. Nonetheless, this multi-movement sequence is not what is meant by sonata form, which refers to the structure of an individual movement.

The definition of sonata form in terms of musical elements sits uneasily between two historical eras. Although the late 18th century witnessed the most exemplary achievements in the form, above all from Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, compositional theory of the time did not use the term "sonata form". Perhaps the most extensive contemporary description of the sonata-form type of movement may have been given by the theorist H. C. Koch in 1793: like earlier German theorists and unlike many of the descriptions of the form we are used to today, he defined it in terms of the movement's plan of modulation and principal cadences, without saying a great deal about the treatment of themes. Seen in this way, sonata form was closest to binary form, out of which it probably developed. The model of the form that is often taught currently tends to be more thematically differentiated. It was originally promulgated by Anton Reicha in Traité de haute composition musicale in 1826, by Adolph Bernhard Marx in Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition in 1845, and by Carl Czerny in 1848. Marx may be the originator of the term "sonata form".

This model was derived from study and criticism of Beethoven's piano sonatas.