First-Movement Sonata Forms

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-167
Author(s):  
Joel Lester
Keyword(s):  
Sonata Form ◽  
Musical Narrative

Chapter 3 studies in detail the first movements of Brahms’s three violin sonatas. Each first movement is cast in sonata form—the most exalted structure of the Classical Era. But Brahms did not fill a “sonata-form mold” with formulaic music. Just like his great predecessors whose music he so dearly loved and esteemed, Brahms adapted the outer aspects of the form and the contents of each section to express that movement’s unique musical narrative. The discussions of each movement explore the traits they all share as well as their individual Romantic features. The A-major Sonata’s first movement also provides an opportunity to explore musical allusions to other pieces and how that might affect our interpretations—both as performers and analysts.

Deformed Beauty?

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-37
Author(s):  
Thomas Grey
Keyword(s):  
Sonata Form ◽  
Musical Narrative ◽  
Formal Procedure ◽  
Formal Design ◽  
Formal Experiment

The last of Felix Mendelssohn’s series of popular and influential concert overtures, the Overture to the Tale of the Fair Melusina of 1835 remains the least familiar of these works. It is also the most unusual with regard to formal design in its purposeful confounding of introduction and sonata-form elements alongside the dialogic relation of clearly gendered thematic materials. Such calculated ‘deformation’ of classic and early Romantic sonata form has been understood as a means of generating a kind of musical-narrative content, though the precise relation of formal experiment to such narrative content has remained elusive. This chapter reconsiders the problematic relation of experimental formal procedure to the narrative dimension and the role this may have played in the composer’s subsequent abandonment of the quasi-programmatic concert overture genre, despite his unparalleled artistic success in the field.

The Quiet Revolution of a B Natural: Prokofiev's ‘New Simplicity’ in the Second Violin Concerto

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEBORAH RIFKIN
Keyword(s):  
Compositional Style ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Romeo And Juliet ◽  
Musical Narrative ◽  
Violin Concerto ◽  
Quiet Revolution ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Soviet People

AbstractThis essay explores changes in Prokofiev's compositional style that occurred in the mid-1930s, around the time that he was making his decision to return to his homeland. In his diary Prokofiev wrote about a desire for a ‘new simplicity’, a style that featured simple melodies and comprehensible form. Compared to the avant-garde aspirations of his earlier works, his ‘new simplicity’ features a self-conscious return to Classical precedents. Prokofiev believed his new lyricism would be a uniquely modern yet accessible music for the Soviet people. Many of his most popular works, including Lieutenant Kijé (1933), Romeo and Juliet (1935–6), and Peter and the Wolf (1936), are written in the style associated with this ‘new simplicity’. The style is distinctive because of its sudden and markedly trangressive chromatic swerves to distant harmonic areas. By invoking and then thwarting tonal conventions, Prokofiev creates a compelling tension between Classicism and modernism. This essay presents the first movement of his Violin Concerto no. 2 (1935) as an exemplar of his ‘new simplicity’. The fractured musical surface is interpreted as a musical narrative, as an ironic satire of sonata form.

Sonata Form in the Orchestral Works of Liszt: The Revolutionary Reconsidered

1984 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 142-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kaplan ◽  
Franz Liszt
Keyword(s):  
Sonata Form ◽  
Orchestral Works

Mozart’s Sonata-Form Arias

2015 ◽  
pp. 37-74
Author(s):  
Nathan John Martin
Keyword(s):  
Sonata Form

scholarly journals Two-Part Transition or Two-Part Subordinate Theme?

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-65
Author(s):  
Carl Wiens
Keyword(s):  
Functional Role ◽  
Sonata Form ◽  
Piano Sonata ◽  
Classical Form ◽  
Clear Cut

In William Caplin’s Classical Form (1998), the ending of a sonata-form exposition’s two-part transition and a two-part subordinate theme’s internal cadence share the same harmonic goal: the new key’s dominant. In this article, the author contends that the choice between the two is not as clear-cut as Caplin suggests, arguing that the functional role of these passages should be read within the context of the entire sonata movement, rather than on more localized analytical interpretations of the sonata’s sections taken in isolation. Two works are discussed: the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op. 2, no. 3, and the first movement of the Piano Sonata op. 10, no. 2.

Music and masks in Lorenzo Da Ponte's Mozartian librettos

1989 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paolo Gallarati
Keyword(s):  
Sonata Form ◽  
Explosive Mixture ◽  
Continuous Transformation ◽  
Psychological Realism ◽  
The Real ◽  
Italian Opera ◽  
Lorenzo Da Ponte ◽  
Single Idea

In his trilogy of masterpieces composed to texts by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Mozart radically changed the musical and theatrical nature of Italian opera. The dramma giocoso became a true ‘comedy in music’ through the use of psychological realism: a vivid representation of life in continuous transformation and in all its naked immediacy is now the real protagonist of the story, an all-embracing totality within which each character represents a separate feature. This influx of a non-rationalist sense of life into the classical proportions of sonata form (whose tonal relationships and free approach to thematic development controlled the vocal set pieces) made for an explosive mixture. Even before his collaboration with Da Ponte, Mozart himself seemed well aware of his uniqueness: ‘I guarantee that in all the operas which are to be performed until mine [L'oca del Cairo] is finished, not a single idea will resemble one of mine.’

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