Classical forms are all intensely concerned with keys and patterns of keys—that is the fundamental aspect of the forms. The essential practice in a sonata-form exposition is to move away from the tonic to a new key, which creates a sense of harmonic departure and therefore harmonic tension. That large harmonic move creates an exposition of two large parts called the first- and second-theme sections. In earlier Haydn, the musical themes associated with the two key areas were often closely related. In later Haydn and in Mozart and Beethoven, the exposition’s two key areas are pointed up by different and contrasting themes (which are still subtly related). In order to create still more tension, the development often involves a number of keys, and an improvisatory atmosphere of searching and fragmentation and often drama, using material from the exposition (though sometimes a new theme turns up in the development). The idea of the recapitulation is to resolve the tension by returning everything to the home key, the tonic.
Most often in composing a piece, Beethoven first settled on its key. Then he found das Thema, the all-important opening theme that sets the mood, the leading motifs from which other themes will be made, and the general direction of the whole piece. Then he worked out the first-movement exposition, then the development, then the recapitulation and perhaps coda, then went on to the other movements in order. Often he sketched ahead, but still he tended to work out pieces one section and one movement at a time.
The formal outline we call sonata form is quite general and flexible, and it was treated with endless variety by composers. The handling of the form was adapted to the demands of the idea and material at hand. There may be subthemes within the first- and second-theme sections. Often the second key area is not the dominant but a more colorful substitute for it—the specific key is not as important as the idea of moving away from the home key to somewhere else. Some developments have a welter of keys, some relatively few. Some developments are dynamic and tumultuous, others calm. Sometimes the retransition to the recapitulation is dramatic, sometimes the moment of recapitulation is slipped into or even obscured. Rarely is the whole recapitulation actually in the tonic/home key; usually there is some amount of modulation (change of key) for the sake of harmonic variety. Codas can be omitted, can be short, or (as sometimes in Beethoven) can be multipart sections in their own right, as long as the other sections.
Haydn and Mozart were usually interested in making their forms clear to the ears of the cognoscenti; here and there, Beethoven deliberately obscured or subverted formal outlines for expressive reasons. In any case, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven saw form as part of the expressive character of a piece: tumultuous or comic moods might warp the form in dramatic ways.
In many respects the essence of sonata form was a way of managing and controlling new kinds of contrast. Individual movements in the earlier Baroque period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were largely based on a single melodic theme and a single emotional tone. Composers of the Classical era were interested in contrasting themes, contrasting emotions, rhythmic shifts of gear, sometimes violent changes of mood and direction. Beethoven stayed true to the traditional principles of sonata form throughout his life, but he pushed contrasts and disjunctions to a degree that bewildered many in his time.
Sonata form is the most complex and most flexible of traditional formal outlines. Composers made use of it well into the twentieth century. Often in Beethoven’s era it was compared to the form of essays, sermons, stories, and dramas. It joined the idea of a clear presentation of ideas—the more or less predictable two theme sections of the exposition and recapitulation—to the unpredictable and quasi-improvisatory quality of the development. In the Romantic period of the nineteenth century, partly because of these connections to other artistic genres, sonata form and instrumental music in general came to be seen as subsuming literature, drama, poetry, even philosophy. That nineteenth-century exaltation of instrumental music started, above all, with Beethoven.
After Beethoven’s day, theorists including Adolph Marx classified and categorized sonata form in a way that tended to freeze it into its simplest outline; often, nineteenth-century composers who used the form failed to understand the freedom with which earlier masters treated it. Some composers, above all Richard Wagner, decreed the old forms dead and buried. One of those who did understand their vitality and flexibility, and handled the traditional forms entirely creatively, was Johannes Brahms.
SONATA-RONDO FORM
The model of sonata form was so powerful to the eighteenth-century Classical period that its principles tended to invade other existing forms. The old idea of a rondo was a piece that went around and around a central theme, usually diagrammed ABACADA and so on: the A section being the main theme in the home key, the other sections containing contrasting ideas usually in new keys. The later eighteenth century integrated that model with sonata form, creating a hybrid we call sonata-rondo. One common outline for it is ABACABA. The A section functions like the first theme of a sonata form; the B section is like the second theme in a new key; the A comes back in the home key; the C section is like a development; the A returns like a recapitulation; and the rest of the piece is in the tonic key.
Again, composers handled this model with great freedom. The second A section was often shortened. The C section might be a new and contrasting idea (a “real” C section), a development of the A and B material, or a combination of the two. What happened after the C section was highly variable. Since a sonata-rondo movement was often lively, fast, sometimes comic, it was one of the common outlines for the finale of a multimovement work.
CONCERTO-SONATA FORM
In the Baroque period, the outline of a concerto movement was simple: a full-orchestra theme (called the tutti), a solo section with orchestral accompaniment, another orchestral interlude, another solo section, and so on as long as the composer liked: tutti, solo, tutti, solo, tutti, solo, etc. Once again, in the Classical period, sonata form invaded this model, creating a more complex hybrid involving a double exposition. In a Classical concerto, first the orchestra alone lays out the basic thematic material of the movement, as in a sonata-form exposition; then a variant of that exposition repeats, now with the soloist added, in alternating sections of tutti and solo. Then, again as in sonata form, there is a development section, recapitulation, and perhaps coda. The solo may introduce themes of its own. In any case, there is a constant sense of dialogue and interplay between solo and orchestra.
THEME AND VARIATIONS
This is a formal outline that can be used for a slow movement or a finale, even (though rarely) for a first movement. It can also be a freestanding piece, like Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations. First there is a theme, a short piece either original or borrowed (such as a popular dance or opera tune). Then there is a series of variations that transform that theme. What is varied varies. The variations can be based on the melody, the harmony, the bass line, or a combination of these approaches. Double variations have two alternating themes, usually treated in alternation. The general idea is to take a piece of material, the theme, and make it into new and contrasting segments of music. Meanwhile there will be an overall shape imposed on the whole of the variations, often involving a gradually faster tempo.
ABA FORM
This is a simple outline often used for slow movements: A, a theme section perhaps with subthemes; B, a more or less contrasting middle section in a new key or keys; and a return to A in the tonic key, often ornamented or otherwise varied. Other versions of it might be ABABA or the like, and there may be a coda.
MINUET-SCHERZO FORM
Classical-era pieces tended to have a minuet movement, a kind of abstraction of the old three-beat popular dance. Most often this was the third of a four-movement piece, sometimes the second movement. One basic formal model was a large three-part form enclosing two smaller three-part forms: ABA minuet section; another ABA called the trio, usually lighter in texture; then a repeat of the minuet. So the large form is minuet–trio–minuet. Again,
this general outline was varied at will.
The scherzo, a word meaning “joke,” was an invention of Haydn. It speeds up the tempo of a minuet to make a new kind of racing, often high-spirited movement—the three-beat meter and formal outline being the same as the minuet, only the tempo faster and the mood lighter. Beethoven wrote many movements in scherzo form and fast tempo that were serious or even tragic, so he did not call those scherzos. He also wrote what amount to scherzos in two-beat meter.
The preceding are the main forms used in multimovement symphonies, concertos, solo sonatas, string quartets, and other chamber music. The overall idea has to do with contrasts of mood and tempo: a typical work might have a fast first movement in sonata form, a slow movement in ABA form, a medium-tempo minuet or racing scherzo, then a fast finale in sonata-rondo form. This pattern was, like all else, infinitely variable. Here and there in his work, Beethoven created new ad hoc or hybrid forms, such as the finales of the Third and Ninth Symphonies.
FUGUE
Fugue is a contrapuntal procedure that evolved in the early Baroque period and persisted through the Classical period and later. First, recall what counterpoint is: a superimposition of melodies, each line (called a voice, even in instrumental music) its own melody, yet the whole also creating effective harmony. (This is in contradistinction to other kinds of texture that involve a single melody with accompaniment.) In the Classical period and later, although fugues were still often composed, the idea had become a kind of self-conscious archaism. Because achieving a balance of good melody and good harmony in counterpoint is one of the most difficult skills in composition, usually involving concentrated study to master, the Classical period called fugue and overt counterpoint “the learned style.”
A simple fugue is based around a single melodic idea called the subject. Counterpoint is woven around that subject, sometimes involving a consistent second thematic idea called a countersubject. A typical fugue begins like this: the subject is heard alone, then a second voice enters on the subject in the dominant key while the first voice continues in counterpoint (perhaps that being the countersubject); then a third voice enters in the tonic key while the other voices weave counterpoint around it. If it is a four-voiced fugue, there is a fourth entry of the subject while the other voices continue in counterpoint. Here is a typical opening of a three-voiced fugue:
Collectively, a section with entries of the subject like this is called a fugal exposition. Then follows a section where there is a kind of as-if improvisation on the exposition material, that section called an episode. The whole of the fugue proceeds in an alternation of exposition (entries of the subject) and episode (free counterpoint on the material). At the end there may be a section called the stretto in which, as if in its eagerness to be heard, the subject enters in the voices in closer succession, each entry almost treading on the heels of the last.
There are infinite variations. A fugue can be in two voices or up to as many as you like (but rarely more than six). There may or may not be a countersubject, or a stretto at the end. The piece may be a double fugue, involving two more or less equal subjects. There are smaller named variants based on the fugal idea: a fughetta is a little fugue, often an episode in a larger movement; a fugato is a fuguelike section involving a subject but is less developed than a full fugue.
Beethoven was fascinated by the fugal idea and turned to it often, especially in the late music. But he was determined to adapt fugue to the demands of Classical-style movements, and constantly found new ways of integrating fugue and sonata or sonata-like forms, or creating new formal patterns based around fugue. Since the model of a fugue composer for Beethoven was J. S. Bach (mainly in The Well-Tempered Clavier), the style of Beethoven’s fugues sometimes recalls Bach.
CANON
Canon resembles fugue in that it is a contrapuntal procedure based on a single subject, but it is a more rigid procedure than fugue. Think of canon as a grown-up form of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”: the beginning of a melody is heard alone, then a second voice begins the same tune while the first voice continues it, and the idea continues with as many voices as you like:
So the single tune is heard two or more times in overlapping entries and creates counterpoint with itself—in effective harmony. The canonic tune may or may not begin on the same pitches in each entry; there are other varieties, such as a crab canon, in which the second entry is the melody backward. Canons can’t happen by accident; they have to be carefully composed. Bach was celebrated for the suppleness and beauty of his canons, qualities that are very hard to achieve in such a rigid form. Beethoven usually wrote freestanding canons only as jokes for friends, but some of his pieces have canonic episodes integrated into the larger form.
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