Elliott Carter's Analysis of his Piano Sonata (1945-46)

In 1948, Elliott Carter penned an analysis of his Piano Sonata for Edgard Varèse. His analysis of the first movement, in particular, makes one ask why Carter did not subsume its recurrent two-tempo structure under “first group” of its sonata form. Given Carter’s sophistication, was he experiencing a moment of music historical “agnosia,” since two-tempo expositions inform familiar Beethoven works such as Piano Sonata, op.31, no.2 and String Quartet in Bb, op.130. This paper explores Carter’s “agnosia” by way of internal and external evidence. Internally, it revisits the thematic chart he attached to the 1948 analysis and goes on to posit the idea that the work’s quintal neo-tonality so saturates its thematic network themes as to distort the composer’s analysis of the form, historical precedents irrespective. Externally, the paper compares three works by Beethoven to Carter’s Sonata as regards its two-tempo structure, using concepts borrowed from Hepokoski and Darcy’s Elements of Sonata Theory (1999). Finally, the author revisits writings of Carter and his circle that may explain why his analysis downplayed historical precedents to the Piano Sonata.

Brahms, Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, op. 68/iv, finale (Adagio; Allegro non troppo, ma con brio)

This final chapter subdivides into three broad sections. The first makes the case for a nuanced applicability of Sonata Theory to romantic form, where deviations from the classical norms are frequent and often highly striking, sometimes to the point where the concept of “sonata” itself can seem strained. Even under these conditions, though, Sonata Theory’s analytical apparatus, forged in the centered norms of an earlier era, continues to serve heuristically productive ends: What is new, transgressive, or experimental in these later works has its impact maximized when read against the backdrop of the classical tradition deployed as a persistent, serviceable interpretive code, even though several of those once-vigorous norms, merely stale if perpetuated as reflex, academic conventions, were no longer binding in current practice. The second section provides an extended historical backdrop to the state of the Austro-Germanic symphony, c. 1840–75, and the importance of Brahms’s work in revitalizing that tradition. The third section is a close analysis of the finale of Brahms’s First Symphony that reads the movement, an expanded Type 1 sonata encased in a broad introduction and coda, as a commentary on the difficulties involved with its own coming-into-being. The work is thus self-reflective—or rather, its staged musical struggles and themes (filled with suggestive historical allusions and topical traditions) run parallel with Brahms’s own anxieties with regard to bringing this work into being, embedding within it, for instance, a “dedication emblem” to Clara Schumann: the famous alphorn theme of the introduction.

The Basics

Following the first three introductory chapters, chapter 4 lays out the essentials of Sonata Theory’s understanding of the guidelines within which classical sonatas work. This is the chapter that summarizes the approach’s technical details and terminology: Sonata Theory in a nutshell. It begins with an overview of the five sonata types and notes that the “Type 3” or the “textbook” sonata, with exposition, development, and recapitulation, is by far the most common. It proceeds to move through each of the action zones of a typical “two-part exposition”—primary theme (P), transition (TR and medial caesura), secondary theme (S), and closing zone (C), noting the various commonly encountered, “default” options within each zone, and how each zone is vectored toward a generically expected cadence. The several issues involved with determining where secondary themes begin and end—within Sonata Theory’s view of things—are given special attention. Along with way it introduces some concepts new to this handbook, such as that of the “narrative” grouping of S (concluding cadentially with the EEC) and the thematic portions of any C that might follow: “the S/C thematic complex.” Following a close study of expositional practice, the chapter moves on, similarly, to describe standard features of developments, recapitulations, and codas. It ends with a few remarks on the Type 1 sonata and its expanded variant, which will be revisited in more detail at the end of chapter 11 and in chapter 12.

The Type 2 Sonata

The Type 2 sonata is a “double-rotational” (or “binary”) sonata: (1) exposition (P TR’ S / C); and (2) developmental space (P and/or TR) plus tonal resolution (S / C). The Type 2 lacks the “double return” of P and the tonic at the onset of other sonata types. For that reason Sonata Theory does not use the term “recapitulation” for Type 2s. This format was widely used in sonatas c. 1740–70, after which its use began to wane sharply, though several examples of it persist throughout the nineteenth century. Because the Type 2 has been the most frequently misunderstood sonata type (sometimes misread through ahistorical claims of a supposed “reversed recapitulation”), this chapter is devoted to building a case for the Type 2 sonata, beginning with the simplest, prototypical examples in early Mozart and then moving through more extended, complex examples from later years, including toward the end, a look at two deformational Type 2s by Mozart: K. 311/i and the Overture to La clemenza di Tito. At its conclusion the chapter lays out an argument on behalf of Sonata Theory’s case for the persistence of the Type 2 and double-rotational sonatas into the nineteenth century (these include both Type 2s and expanded Type 1 sonatas, which under some conditions are almost indistinguishable) and responds to some recent critics of the Type 2 concept for romantic works, along the way presenting an overview of Wagner’s (expanded Type 1) Overture to Tannhäuser, which in this case presents the same structural questions as those of a Type 2 sonata.

Mozart, Piano Sonata in B-flat, K. 333/i (Allegro)

Chapter 2—which may be read before chapter 1, if that is the preference of the reader—is the book’s first illustration of Sonata Theory in practice. It provides a close reading of the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in B-flat, K. 333, that simultaneously presents an introduction to the theory’s specific mode of analysis and its most central concepts and terms. Not least of its concerns are its urgings that the listener/analyst is a co-creator of the work’s meaning (resulting ultimately in a responsible hermeneutic reading): Sonata Theory analysis seeks to be an aesthetically receptive, interactive dialogue with an individual work. Even in its most language-technical moments, it tries to integrate methodical observation with a personal sensitivity to the affective contours and colors of music as music. Two other features of the book are also introduced here: a historical/contextual backdrop for the work under consideration (including dating, original purpose, and aesthetic); and the inclusion of other modes of analytical practice to suggest their compatibility with Sonata Theory.

A Sonata Theory Handbook

A Sonata Theory Handbook is a step-by-step, seminar-like introduction to Sonata Theory, a new approach to the study and interpretation of sonata form. The book updates and advances the outline of the method first presented in Hepokoski and Darcy’s 2006 Elements of Sonata Theory. It blends explanations of the theory’s general principles—dialogic form, expositional action zones, trajectories toward generically normative cadences, rotation theory, the five sonata types, the special case of the minor-mode sonata, and more—with illustrations of them in practice through close, extended analyses of eight individual movements by Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms. Central to the method is the merging of historically informed, technical analysis with the concerns of hermeneutic interpretation. The book features an inclusive engagement with recent developments in form theory, schema theory, and other related studies since 2006, including some of the language and insights of cognitive research into music perception and the more generalized concerns of conceptual metaphor theory. It ultimately builds to reflections on sonata form in the romantic era: the flexible applicability of Sonata Theory to mid- and late-nineteenth-century works.

Haydn, Symphony No. 100 in G, “Military,” first movement (Adagio–Allegro)

Chapter 5 returns to the technique of paradigmatic close analysis to show Sonata Theory in practice, this time examining the first movement of Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 in G, “Military.” Apart from analysis proper, the chapter discusses the differences of Haydn’s style from that of Mozart’s—especially but not only in recapitulatory practice—and also shows the flexibility of Sonata Theory in approaching a very different composer. The chapter leads off with a consideration of the role of “nicknames and paratexts” (like “Military”) in framing one’s interpretation of a work, including a proposed set of criteria for a responsible hermeneutic reading. It then proceeds to the usual historical backdrop and context for this piece, taking up also the question of Haydn’s London symphonies as “monumental” works for their time, culminations of eighteenth-century practice. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to a close, Sonata Theory–oriented analysis of this movement, beginning with the structure and role of its slow introduction. The analysis leads to a reading of this movement as “military” in its concerns, one that involves an increasingly expanding role for the exposition’s concluding theme.

What Is Sonata Theory?

This chapter lays out the most foundational, generative concepts behind Sonata Theory. These include: the role of the listener or analyst in helping to produce a “meaning” or reading for the work; genre theory and dialogic form (individual works in dialogue with implicit or conceptual norms); differences between generic types and individual exemplars (tokens) of those types, the latter linked with the rise of aesthetic perception; successive action zones (in the exposition, P, TR, S, and C—primary theme, transition, secondary theme, and closing zone) within a musically narrative journey; the structural role of cadences and cadence attainment; keys, layouts, and tonal confirmation; rotation theory (themes and their ordered succession); Sonata Theory’s outreach to other, differing methodologies as complements; the importance of not reducing Sonata Theory to an inelastic or mechanical method.

Beethoven, Symphony No. 2 in D, op. 36/i (Adagio molto–Allegro con brio)

This chapter moves on from Mozart and Haydn to consider an early-nineteenth-century movement from Beethoven, the initial movement of his Symphony No. 2, written at the onset of what he considered to be an aesthetic “new path” of composition (and which we tend to regard as the onset of his “middle period”). While the parallels between this movement and that of Haydn’s Symphony No. 100 (chapter 5) are clear—a major-to-minor “fall” in the introduction, themes with “military” connotations, a drive toward a triumphant conclusion, and the like—the differences between the two are equally instructive. With Beethoven we are thrown into a more turbulent musical world, where the classical norms of late-eighteenth-century sonata practice are exaggerated, hyper-dramatized, and sometimes overridden (with “deformations”). The older “default” norms of sonata practice begin to be regularly challenged, and with them arises a new, proto-romantic sense of “listening” and “understanding.” Once past the initial historical backdrop and reframing of Sonata Theory for the onset of a new century, the close reading of the movement that takes up the most of the chapter argues that a central issue in the movement is that of major-minor conflict, where the introduction’s “fall” into minor is not overcome until the climactic post-sonata coda. In part this also prepares the reader for the extended discussions of the minor-mode sonata in the ensuing chapter.

The Minor-Mode Sonata

Minor-mode sonatas constitute a special case within classical—and later—sonata practice. In part this is because of the special affective quality historically assigned to the minor mode, along with many of the characteristic moods and colors associated with it. This chapter elaborates the “extra burden” of sonata forms in the minor mode, which often entails its drive—often thwarted—to be converted into the major, a drama that rose to central importance only in the last two or three decades of the eighteenth century, with Haydn playing a large role in it. Supplementing and updating the consideration of minor-mode sonatas in Elements of Sonata Theory, this chapter also incorporates new information gleaned from Riley’s and Graves’s separate studies of eighteenth-century minor-mode practice. Issues covered include the affective range of the minor mode; standardized minor-mode styles and “topics”; characteristic intervallic figures (like the “pathotype” figure); the aspiration and techniques of “escape into the major,” whether locally or permanently; the eighteenth-century convention of the “mediant tutti”; and the evolving concept of “tragic plot/comic plot,” relating to whether the sonata will end in minor or overcome that minor by a modal reversal into the major.