Charles Rosen Forma Sonata Pdf

Generic AffiliationsAs its title implies, the model for Elements of Sonata Theory is ostensibly the scientific textbook, a genre that essentially requires in excess of 500 double‐column pages (which is what we get – 661 pages including appendices and indices, to be precise). The book's generic allegiance is confirmed on the first page of the Preface: ‘From one perspective the Elements is a research report, the product of our analyses of hundreds of individual movements by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many surrounding composers of the time (as well as later composers)’ (p. Hence both vocabulary and symbology rely heavily on scientific conventions. As far as the former is concerned, instead of sections and themes or thematic groups, there are ‘actions zones’ and ‘spaces’, and the general discourse is throughout liberally peppered with ‘trajectories’, ‘vectors’, ‘rotations’ and the like. Even the problematic and much‐debated term ‘deformation’ is justified by analogy to usage in the physical sciences: ‘“deformation” is descriptive of a certain state of a solid object – a change of shape, a departure from its original, normal, or customary state resulting from the application of a force’ (p. As a general rule, sentences seem constructed to maximise the number of abbreviations and quasi‐scientific buzzwords. The description of expositional strategy in Chapter 2 is typical: ‘The large dotted‐line arrow in figure 2.1a suggests a broadly vectored trajectory from the start of the exposition to the EEC; the smaller dotted‐line arrow below it suggests a subordinate trajectory from the beginning of S to its own point of PAC‐closure at the EEC’ (p.

18).As regards symbols, the diagrams themselves of course draw on mathematical graphing conventions (see in particular figures 2.1a and 2.1b on p. 17); all that is really missing is the use of Greek letters. The different categories of ‘medial caesura’ are allocated elaborate designations such as ‘V: PAC MC’; the different ‘spans’ of P, S, TR, C and the rest are designated by superscript integers (‘P 1’, ‘P 2’ and so on); and within these spans, any smaller ‘modules’ are identified by decimalised superscript integers (‘P 1.1’, ‘P 1.2’ etc.). A variety of further symbols is employed for different types of large‐ and small‐scale function: ‘ ’ denotes ‘mergers’ or elisions, subscript letters are added to functional chord symbols (for example, ‘V T’ distinguishes a tonicised dominant from one that is sounded but not tonicised, which is designated ‘V A’), and so forth.

The notation becomes particularly involved where concerto (Type 5) movements are concerned, as the additional ritornello‐solo aspect of the structure spawns extra colons and backwards slashes: an individual module within ‘P‐space’ in the opening orchestral ritornello is, for instance, identified as ‘R1:∖P 1.1’. When entire ‘action‐spaces’ are summarised, convoluted quasi‐mathematical formulae result. For example, the ‘recapitulatory rotation’ of the evidently deceptively approachable Finale of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C major, K. 309 (1777), merits the following near‐impenetrable sequence: ‘ P rfS 1.4—(’) Episode S 1.2— (’) S 1.1 S 1.3 S 1.4 RT! S 1.2!!(’) C S 1.4!!’ (p. 412).As the Preface leads the reader to expect, scientific metaphor also governs the presentation of key concepts and the evaluation of major ‘generic markers’ within movements. In fact, the initial elucidation of the central idea of a hierarchy of generic defaults and deformations is defined in terms likely to appeal to the most hard‐core of computer enthusiasts:For novice‐composers, one might wittily fantasize.

Something on the order of an aggressively complex ‘wizard’ help feature within a late‐eighteenth‐century musical computer application, prompting the still‐puzzled apprentice with a welter of numerous, successive dialog boxes of general information, tips, pre‐selected weighted options, and strong, generically normative suggestions as the act of composition proceeded. As a result, the chapter on the medial caesura (pp. 23–50), for instance, exudes statistical propriety, establishing a four‐tier hierarchy of defaults on the basis of frequency of occurrence in the sample of ‘hundreds of individual movements’ and then defining the structural role of each type of medial caesura partly in percentage terms: ‘Our research suggests that the deployment of the I: HC MC is flexible, occurring typically within the 15–45 percent range’ (p. 37); ‘When selected, the V: HC MC option is typically placed from about 25 to 50 percent (more rarely, 60 percent)’ (p.

39); and so on.This scientific orientation of Elements of Sonata Theory worries me, for it promises rather more than it delivers. To begin with, in a scientific ‘research report’ one would expect a full account of the sample, complete descriptive statistics and an explanation of sampling methodology. In this particular case, the reader could derive reassurance from confirmation that careful consideration had been given to the chronological, geographical and generic distribution in the selection of movements. Given Sonata Theory's emphasis on hierarchies of defaults, one would also expect at least some basic statistical analysis. An examination of modal frequency, standard deviation and regression, for example, would clearly add much valuable definition to the bare percentages quoted with regard to the deployment of different types of medial caesura. Unfortunately, readers are obliged to do the spadework for themselves. The sample can of course be reconstructed from the Index of Works (pp.

Altogether, 665 sonata movements are cited in the book. The sample is heavily weighted towards the period c. That is not necessarily a problem given the book's subtitle, but the small number of movements (59, or 8.8%) written by composers born after 1800 does not obviously imbue with authority the authors’ claim in the Preface that their theory provides a ‘foundation for considering works from the decades to come’ (p. Vii); all the more so, since nearly all such pieces referred to are overtures or the first movements of symphonies and more than a quarter of them are by a single composer, specifically Brahms.

Even amongst composers born before 1800, Mozart seems unduly prominent; in fact, his 228 movements constitute 34% of the overall total.When one turns to the 87 actual musical examples drawn from sonata movements, the skewed nature of the sample becomes yet more troublesome. Breaks these down by composer and genre.

Apart from a single overture, only four genres are represented (concerto, keyboard sonata, symphony and string quartet). Not one movement after Beethoven is actually accorded a musical example and the latest piece to be included is the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. A colossal 76% of the examples are taken from Mozart's works, 42% of which are concertos. Tellingly, more than a quarter (26%) come from just six Mozart pieces: Piano Concertos Nos.

271 (1777), and 21, K. 467 (1785); the Piano Sonata in F major, K. 280 (1775); Symphonies Nos. 543 (1788), and 40, K. 550 (1788); and the String Quartet in C major, K. Hepokoski's and Darcy's musical examples classified by composer and genreThe impression given by all of this is that Sonata Theory has been constructed mainly on the basis of a relatively restricted Mozartian corpus, an impression that is reinforced when one scrutinises pieces cited in the text but not dealt with in any detail. It is not, for instance, evident that the authors conducted independent analyses of any of the seventeen Clementi piano‐sonata movements to which they refer.

All the analytical information supplied can be found in Leon Plantinga's 1977 monograph, which contains some implausible analytical interpretations. By way of an example, summarises the structure of the Finale of Clementi's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 2 (published 1802).

This has a lengthy slow introduction adumbrating the core components of the primary material, shown in. There follows a relatively uncontroversial ‘Allegro’ exposition with clear relative‐major secondary and closing areas (bars 45 2 and 63 respectively) prepared by a minor‐inflected medial caesura. The retention of minor colouring for the first bar of the secondary zone creates a slight overlap. The ensuing development eschews the main theme in favour of secondary and transitional material, concluding at bar 101 with the original medial caesura transposed to the dominant of G minor. At bar 103 2 the whole of the second theme is then restated in the submediant, concluding with an interrupted cadence, which at bar 125 initiates a transitional extension re‐establishing the home dominant. At this point (bar 140), there is an abridged version of the slow introduction followed by a lengthy ‘Presto’ coda (bar 153 4) that is launched by a frenetic variant of the main theme. A convincing analysis of this highly individual movement would have to account for the fact that what Hepokoski and Darcy would term a ‘Type 2 sonata with P‐based Coda’ enters into dialogue with the ‘deformational’ categories of the ‘non‐tonic recapitulation’ and a variant of the ‘introduction‐coda’ frame.

Plantinga overlooks all that, unfeasibly identifying the ‘Presto’ coda as the recapitulation. His interpretation ignores many core concerns of Sonata Theory – particularly in its failure to mark the ‘crux’ (the ‘moment of rejoining the events of the expositional pattern after once having departed from them’; see p. 240) – yet the authors seem simply to assume that Plantinga's analysis is valid and cite Clementi's movement in passing as an example of a piece in which a slow introduction returns before the recapitulation.

Charles Rosen Forma Sonata Pdf 1

In fact, Clementi's strategy seems much bolder: to apply Hepokoski's and Darcy's term, the restatement of the slow introduction ‘overwrites’ the tonic return of the primary material, to which it is motivically related. Allied to all this is the authors’ frequent habit of reiterating straightforward concepts. Does someone capable of apprehending the quasi‐mathematical formula describing the Finale of Mozart's Sonata K.

309 quoted above really need to be told several times that in Mozart's concertos it is the norm for ‘S‐space’ to begin in the tonic in the opening ritornello? Whilst one can appreciate that it is difficult for a co‐authored book to maintain a consistency of tone, the sharp rhetorical fluctuations in Elements of Sonata Theory create a sense of confusion about generic identity and the book's intended readership. ‘Fundamental Axioms’The problems surrounding the generic affiliations and much of the language of Elements of Sonata Theory have a direct bearing on the trio of central concepts deemed important enough to merit further elucidation in the appendices (pp. 611–21): the ‘genre sonata’; ‘rotation’; and ‘deformation’. The notion of treating sonata form as a genre rather than a ‘mere form’ is not new: it goes back at least to the work of Leo Treitler, for example his 1989 essay on the slow movement of Mozart's Symphony No. Nevertheless, unlike previous proponents of the idea, Hepokoski and Darcy do proffer a justification.

They define genres as ‘elaborate constellations of norms and traditions’ that ‘transform over time and differ from place to place’ and contend thatmusical genres (such as ‘sonata form’ or ‘the multimovement sonata’) are to be distinguished from mere forms insofar as they also carry an implicit social or ideological content. A schematic form becomes a genre when we also attend to its social and cultural ramifications – among which is its decisive position‐taking on a contested social field of cultural production. Convenient though this approach is as a conceptual prop, it raises numerous questions.

First, what about ‘constellations of norms and traditions’ that are not considered to be genres – how do we classify them? Second, what is the precise relationship between the ‘genre sonata’ and musical creations more usually deemed to be genres: symphony, concerto, sonata, mass and so on? Also, what is the significance of contextual differences between deployments of sonata forms in the first movements of symphonies, finales of string quartets, opera buffa ensembles and so forth? Moreover, if what dictates whether a particular piece of music should be viewed in generic rather than formal terms is primarily the inference of ‘social or ideological content’ by an ‘informed listener/analyst’, then surely any musical form can in fact be designated as a genre. Certainly, Hepokoski and Darcy do not elucidate why sonata‐form movements are generically essentially different from those in ternary form, for example. And if the prevailing view of form as trans‐generic is invalid, then why bother with the concept of musical form at all?

The perceived advantages of viewing sonata form as a genre would appear to come at a considerable cost.My doubts in this regard are exacerbated by the problematic notion that certain options are ‘generically unavailable’ at any point in history. Dealing with nineteenth‐century first movements, the developments of which are prefaced by a return to the primary theme in the tonic, the authors caution that these should not be mistaken for a Type 4 design (sonata‐rondo), because ‘Type 4 sonatas are historically and generically unavailable for first movements’ (p. This immediately raises further awkward questions: how is a composer supposed know that a particular design is generically prohibited at a given time; what are the historical processes that ultimately allow generic experimentation to take place; and why should a sonata's position within a multi‐movement work supersede all parameters of its internal organisation?Still more troubling is the fact that Sonata Theory is entirely out of kilter with modern genre theory as expounded, for instance, in John Frow's excellent 2006 monograph on the topic. The prevailing opinion is that genre arises from the interaction of a diversity of dimensions – formal structure, thematic structure, mode of presentation, rhetorical function, and so on – and hence that generic affiliations are identified above all through the ‘intertwined effects of form and framing’.

This surely means that it is of fundamental import whether a sonata form occurs in the first movement of a symphony or the Kyrie of a mass. Furthermore, it is difficult to reconcile Hepokoski's and Darcy's concept of generic non‐availability with the modern literary view that texts ‘use or perform the genres by which they are shaped’ and that the relationship between text and genre ‘is one of productive elaboration rather than of derivation or determination’. In these terms, every text or piece of music is to an extent sui generis; pace Hepokoski's recent analysis of The Ruins of Athens, Op.

113 (1811), it is perfectly possible that Beethoven might experiment at this time with a ternary instead of a sonata‐form schema for an overture.The ‘foundational axiom’ of ‘rotation’ is advocated with particular tenacity. As noted above, ‘rotation’ refers to recycling of the thematic pattern established in the exposition. The contention is that this ‘referential layout’ acts as a template for not only the recapitulation but also the development and in many instances even the coda.

To account for the fact that relatively few developments literally cycle through the expositional materials in the original order, a plethora of modifications is devised: ‘developmental half‐rotations, truncated rotations, rotations with episodic substitutes “writing over” some of the expected individual elements, rotation with newly included interpolations, internal digressions from the governing rotational thread, occasional reorderings of the modules, and the like’ (p. Where a secondary area begins with a variant of the primary theme (common in Haydn), the exposition is also deemed to consist of two ‘subrotations’ (p. In contrast to the idea of sonata form as genre, the notion of rotation as ‘an archetypal principle of musical structure’ is asserted without any real explanation other than the drawing of unconvincing analogies with clocks, spirals, the daily and yearly cycles and suchlike. Signing up to the rotational way of thinking is thus essentially an act of quasi‐religious faith, as is implied by the authors’ at times highly metaphysical rhetoric: ‘Rotational procedures are grounded in a dialectic of persistent loss (the permanent death of each instant as it lapses into the next) and the impulse to seek a temporal “return to the origin”, a cyclical renewal and rebeginning’ (p. 611).The analytical consequences of accepting the rotational principle as non‐negotiable are far‐reaching. To begin with, one has to abandon the widely disseminated concepts of ‘mirror’, ‘reversed’ and ‘partly reversed’ recapitulations endorsed by writers from Schumann to Rosen, Timothy Jackson and beyond. Hepokoski and Darcy prefer to view movements exhibiting such characteristics as Type 2 sonatas with codas or ‘coda‐rhetoric interpolations’ based on primary material (see pp.

232, 344, 354, 365–9 and 382–3). Similarly, Sonata Theory does not accommodate the standard interpretation of the ABACB 1A variant of the sonata rondo (Type 4) that is favoured by Mozart, for instance, as an incomplete realisation (with the third A omitted) of a full ABACAB 1A design. Instead, the theory decrees that the ABACB 1A format is a ‘tri‐rotational’, ‘Expanded Type 1 Sonata‐Rondo Mixture’ in which the second (recapitulatory) rotation features a ‘pronounced internal expansion’ or ‘billowing out’ (that is, the C section) between A and the transitional link into B 1 (see pp.

It is apparently not a problem that this line of analytical interpretation can produce very lopsided proportions (the Finale of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 58 of 1804–7 has a second rotation spanning nearly half the movement, for instance). As regards concertos, the workings of Type 5 movements can at times be so convoluted that the authors are forced to invent the ‘rotationally neutral slot’: an ‘out‐of‐order’ module that is deemed to be ‘inert’ and thus to lie outside the main rotational sphere – a sort of analytical joker to be played in times of exegetic extremis (see, for example, pp. 525 and 558).Attentive reading of Elements of Sonata Theory uncovers a significant degree of insecurity about the rotational metaphor. Non‐rotational approaches are repeatedly rejected in surprisingly hard‐line language: the ‘reverse recapitulation’ is described in particularly aggressive terms as a ‘fallacy’ or ‘misjudgement’ and non‐believers are roundly chastised: ‘Here the primacy of the rotational principle – obvious enough for those who choose to observe it – trumps traditional, erroneous terminology’ (p.

(As a general rule, in this book the more debatable a theoretical concept is, the more strident is its linguistic formulation.) In addition, a number of writers regarded with circumspection or even suspicion elsewhere in the text are enlisted to endorse rotation. Rosen is cited in support of the notion of the development as a second rotation (pp. 612–13) of the ‘referential layout’. Reicha and Czerny are also alleged to describe rondos in rotational terms (pp. 390–2), although they are censured elsewhere for failing to acknowledge the Type 2 sonata format (p. 365).There would indeed appear to be much about which Hepokoski and Darcy need to be defensive.

As is argued above, the term ‘rotation’ itself is not really appropriate in this one‐dimensional context. A more accurate scientific metaphor might be ‘periodicity’, and periodicity can undergo permutation, which suggests that the re‐arrangement of material proposed by the ‘reverse recapitulation’ concept is scarcely the anathema that the authors assert it to be. Nor is it clear why a development rotation should be equated with an exposition rotation, even where the former works the expositional material in precisely the same order. This is because the exposition's succession of ‘tight‐knit’ and ‘loose‐knit’ units (Caplin's terms) as well as its patterns of textural and tonal stability and instability are entirely different from those in a development. The defining characteristic of developments is in fact contrast, normally in the form of looser organisation dominated by fragmentation and sequential progression. Marx to apply his general Ruhe‐Bewegung‐Ruhe model to sonata form, assigning the Bewegung function to the development; Caplin too describes the development as ‘a higher‐level analogue to the contrasting middle section in a small ternary form’.

In short, the propositions that in developments thematic order takes precedence and that ‘nonrotational events’ are apprehended as ‘writing over a more normatively rotational option’ are entirely contentious.A further problem is that the analytical gymnastics required to preserve rotational rectitude often result in readings of specific pieces that are convoluted to the point of being counter‐intuitive. An obvious case in point is the first movement of Mozart's much‐analysed Piano Sonata in D, K.

The overwhelming majority of commentators classify this movement as a Type 3 sonata with a ‘reverse recapitulation’ of some sort; Hepokoski's and Darcy's analysis – which, typically for this book, is scattered across numerous and disparate sections (see in particular pp. 292, 377 and 385) – deems it to be a complex deformation of the Type 2 referential layout. The exposition is relatively straightforward, with clearly demarcated zonal boundaries. The complications begin after the double bar. Offers a skeletal summary of the second part of the movement. The development avoids the main theme altogether: it begins by working the gesture that closed the exposition (‘C 2’) and then in bars 58–65 (equivalent to bars 28–35 in the exposition) reiterates the latter stages of the second span of the subordinate thematic complex in the subdominant. A sequential passage loosely based on bars 10 3–12 (which exhibit transitional rhetoric) then leads to the ‘crux’, which commences in bar 75 with the untransposed ‘dominant lock’ of the original ‘I: HC’ medial caesura (bars 13–16), complete with conventional ‘triple‐hammer‐blow’ effect.

What follows is not the main theme but a modified and minimally expanded tonic return of the secondary material (bars 78 4–98) partly clouded by modal mixture (bars 83–86). The concluding fourteen bars, shown in, are described by Hepokoski and Darcy thus: ‘we regard the return of the incipit (only) of P in m. 99 to be a passage of coda‐rhetoric interpolation lasting until m. 109, when it is elided with the onset of C 1. In this case the CRI is wedged between S‐space – with the ESC at m. 99 – and the beginning of C‐space’ (p. Mozart, Piano Sonata in D major, K.

311/i, bars 99–112In order to persevere with a Type 2 ‘bi‐rotational’ interpretation of the first movement of K. 311, one therefore has to contend that the start of the second rotation is ‘overwritten’ by a development that avoids P and has a startlingly deformational reverse‐order (C–S–TR) thematic sequence, and that the emphatic return of the main theme at bar 99 is essentially a mere digression within that elusive second rotation. The second of these propositions seems to be a simple case of the tail wagging the dog: surely the original four‐bar closing gesture is best seen as an appendage to an expanded version of the first theme?

There are in fact many similarly problematic instances in the repertoire. The Finale of Clementi's Piano Sonata in G minor, Op. 3, ‘Didone abbandonata’ (published 1821), is a clear example: an orthodox rotational reading of the closing stages of this movement would presumably dictate that the nineteen bars (bars 403–421) before the brief final, cadential C module are ‘coda‐rhetoric interpolation’ (see p. 288 for an unambiguous general pronouncement to this effect), whereas all other structural parameters indicate that a coda beginning in bar 403 concludes with a short end‐rhyme recalling the close of the exposition in the tonic.

In sum, a strict rotational reading of the first movement of Mozart's K. 311 is essentially non‐congruent with the movement's rhetorical thrust. Of course, Hepokoski and Darcy are aware of the large‐scale problem here, but their explanation does little to reassure the sceptical: ‘once audibly “thrown away” as an option, a non‐normative Type 2 sonata deformation could apparently be recuperated by simple fiat’ (p. 376).All this is not to claim that foregrounding thematic over tonal concerns cannot be analytically productive in some cases. Such an approach sheds valuable light when, for example, a recapitulation appears to begin in a non‐tonic key. The closing stages of the development in the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 2 in F major (1796–7), prepare the dominant of the relative minor and the opening theme begins at bar 118 in the submediant major.

The whole of the opening thematic gesture is heard in D major, after which a ‘distorted and expanded’ version of the initial material (bars 131–136) moves to the dominant of F major. Beethoven then proceeds with the second module of the primary material in the tonic. Hepokoski and Darcy are persuasive in arguing that in this instance ‘it is preferable to conclude that the recapitulation itself begins in VI, m. 118, and self‐corrects en route’ (pp. Similarly convincing conclusions might be reached about the recapitulations of eight Clementi major‐mode movements, which – whilst retaining the essential rhetorical structure of their original expositions – begin by reiterating the main unit of the primary thematic complex in a non‐tonic key and then modulate before resuming in the tonic where they left off.

Nevertheless, in the main Elements of Sonata Theory seems concerned with the fixed, unvarying aspects of repetition.