The Sonata

by Thomas Schmidt-Beste

• ISBN13: 9780521756310
• ISBN10: 0521756316
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-04-18
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

What is a sonata? Literally translated, it simply means 'instrumental piece'. It is the epitome of instrumental music, and is certainly the oldest and most enduring form of 'pure' and independent instrumental composition, beginning around 1600 and lasting to the present day. Schmidt-Beste analyses key aspects of the genre including form, scoring and its social context - who composed, played and listened to sonatas? In giving a comprehensive overview of all forms of music which were called 'sonatas' at some point in musical history, this book is more about change than about consistency - an ensemble sonata by Gabrieli appears to share little with a Beethoven sonata, or a trio sonata by Corelli with one of Boulez's piano sonatas, apart from the generic designation. However, common features do emerge, and the look across the centuries - never before addressed in a single-volume survey - opens up new and significant perspectives.

Table of Contents

List of musical examples	p. viii
List of tables	p. xi
Preface	p. xii
Definitions	p. 1
Sonata and canzona	p. 3
Sonata and sinfonia	p. 7
Sonata and concerto	p. 9
Sonata and suite/partita	p. 10
The sonata and free instrumental genres: toccata - ricercar - capriccio - fantasia	p. 12
Summary: instrumentation, form, texture or function?	p. 15
Form	p. 20
The 'free' sonata in the seventeenth century	p. 20
Corelli and his legacy	p. 34
The sonata da chiesa	p. 36
The sonata da camera	p. 41
Corelli's followers in the eighteenth century	p. 47
Regional traditions	p. 51
Sonata cycles and 'sonata form' after 1750	p. 53
Fast movements: 'sonata form' and related categories	p. 54
From dance form to sonata form	p. 55
Terminology	p. 61
The exposition	p. 63
The development	p. 76
The recapitulation	p. 82
There-entry	p. 84
The transition	p. 86
The recapitulation as a result of events in the exposition and development	p. 87
Extra options: slow introduction and coda	p. 88
Sonata form - bipartite or tripartite?	p. 90
Slow movements	p. 91
Minuet and scherzo	p. 95
Finales	p. 97
Beethoven's sonatas - consummating or transcending Classical form?	p. 100
Construction of themes and their elaboration	p. 103
Types of theme	p. 103
Thematic contrast and thematic derivation	p. 105
Elaboration and transformation of themes and motives	p. 105
Slow introduction and coda	p. 107
Manipulations of the tonal process	p. 108
Major-key recapitulation in minor-key movements	p. 108
Third relations versus fifth relations	p. 110
New slow-movement types	p. 111
The upgrading of the dance movement	p. 113
Final movements	p. 115
Camouflaging the formal structure	p. 115
The cycle	p. 117
Sequence and combination of movements	p. 117
Tonal structures	p. 119
Transitions	p. 121
Motivic unity and quotations	p. 122
The sonata after Beethoven	p. 126
Franz Schubert	p. 128
Sonata composition after c. 1830	p. 135
Motivic unity - motivic derivation - developing variation	p. 140
Quotation	p. 147
Tonal structure	p. 149
Integration on multiple levels: Schumann's Piano Sonata, Op. 11	p. 150
The amalgamation of the sonata cycle with sonata form: Franz Liszt's B minor Sonata	p. 151
Sonata composition in the twentieth century	p. 157
The sonata in the nineteenth-century tradition	p. 158
The neo-classicist and historicist sonata	p. 163
The sonata as generic 'piece for instrument(s)'	p. 165
The eclectic sonata	p. 168
Functions and aesthetics	p. 173
Locations and occasions	p. 173
Target groups: professionals, connoisseurs and amateurs	p. 177
Learned style	p. 179
Virtuosity	p. 182
Sonata form as an aesthetic paradigm	p. 186
Absolute music? On meaning and programmaticism	p. 188
Scoring and texture	p. 193
Developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries	p. 194
Number of instruments	p. 194
The ensemble sonata	p. 194
The sonata for small ensemble	p. 195
Nature and formation of the ensemble	p. 200
The scoring of the bass part	p. 204
Other instruments	p. 205
The paradigm shift of c. 1750	p. 208
The age of the piano sonata	p. 210
Beethoven, Clementi and the nineteenth century	p. 215
The piano sonata in the twentieth century	p. 219
Piano and others	p. 220
Melody instrument with piano or piano with melody instrument?	p. 220
The duo sonata in the nineteenth century as the 'anti-virtuosic' sonata	p. 225
Other instruments	p. 228
Developments in the twentieth century	p. 230
The sonata for unaccompanied solo instrument	p. 231
The organ sonata	p. 233
Notes	p. 236
Select bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 250
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