SONATA FORM | INTRODUCTION TO SONATA THEORY

WHAT IS SONATA FORM?

sonata form is probably the most important musical form to understand because it comes up everywhere, that's because it's one of the most brilliant ways of developing your musical ideas in a well-rounded and dramatically effective way. It seems to have developed from the binary form and you can start hearing it from the music of Joseph Haydn onwards so let's go and I'll presume you've seen my blog posts on musical seeds and tonality I'll give you a quick overview of Sonata form and then we'll go into a little more detail with a famous example.

PARTS OF SONATA FORM

Sonata form can be divided into three main parts and they are,

1. EXPOSITION.

2. DEVELOPMENT.

3. RECAPITULATION.

Ø EXPOSITION

first, the exposition which basically presents or exposes all the main themes, all the main musical material and seeds this is made up of two groups which will definitely be in contrasting keys and may also have contrasting themes moods or ideas so that already sets up a kind of conflict and particularly a conflict of keys and the exposition is often repeated. Then there's the development which explores and develops the

the material we've heard in the exposition and this is usually more discursive and looser in structure and will move through many keys and finally, we get a recapitulation which literally recaps the exposition but with a twist things are the same in some ways but in other ways crucially different. For example the first and second group will return but now both will be in the HOME key and so the tonal conflict from the exposition is resolved the reason that this model is so good is that it gives great space for a compelling musical argument to be developed an interesting parallel for Sonata form is that of a discussion between two people with different points of view take Hegel's dialectic first we get our thesis or statement this is like our first group of the exposition and this gives rise to an antithesis which contradicts or negates the thesis. This is like our second group which comes in a contrasting key and then through much discussion dissecting and rebuilding which is our development we come to a synthesis which resolves the tension between the disagreement this is like our recapitulation so you see the Sonata form is a great model for building dramatically in pieces of music in my opinion the three most exciting points where composers get the opportunity to blow

your mind at the development section the return from the development into the recapitulation and the second group of the recapitulation and you'll find out why through the rest of this post.

so this is the fundamental Sonata form structure though it is often talked entailed with an introduction and a coda the introduction is normally at a slower tempo and its job is to set the mood for the piece as well as perhaps hint at some of the melodic material the coda gives a solid sense of finality to the piece if the recapitulation hasn't already done so and if the coda might also bring closure to any unanswered questions we might still have about the music so let's look a little closer and we'll use Mozart's symphony number 40 in G minor as an example first the exposition which is divided into two groups in contrasting keys what's important to understand is that there are no limits to the number of themes or amount of somatic material that may appear in a group you may be presented with many musical ideas which will come back later or there may just be one theme per group the first and second group can even use the same material Hyden often uses exactly the same theme in his first and second group though that's in the very early stages of Sonata form the thing that always divides them is their key.

The first group will always be in the home tonic while the second group will always be in a contrasting key typically if the first group was in a major key the second group will be in the dominant key if the first the group was minor the second group will move to the dominant or the relative major though things get a little more adventurous as we progress through history these two groups will often have very contrasting themes or moods though that's not a necessity for Sonata form however it can definitely make

the drama more interesting these two groups are normally connected together by a transition passage which allows the music to transition or bridge from one key to the next and this transitional material might be memorable or interesting in its own right so with Mozart's 40th the first group in G minor gives us this theme then the transition gives us this material and changes key for us the second group in b-flat major gives us this Karma contrasting scaling scene and finally the exposition will often end with the co debtor a co-debtor literally means a small coder. So, it offers a sense of finality but not too much finality it only wants to close off the section not the whole piece and the co-debtor will firmly close the music in our second key so here it closes the exposition in b-flat major but Mozart gives us a reminder of the first.

The theme often the whole exposition is repeated and this is the case with this Mozart piece, some people think the repeat is important because it gives the music the right sense of proportion others. Ignore the repeats because they can make the piece go on a bit.

Ø DEVELOPMENT

Next comes the development and this is a point of major interest in the piece where the composer can run free and do crazy and creative things with their ideas. So the point is to develop the material we've already been exposed to importantly. It will generally completely avoid going into either of the main keys we heard in the exposition instead it'll probably go through a wide range of keys and be reluctant to settle on any of them.

Apart from this, there are no real rules for the development section and different composers will do things very differently so in a sense if the exposition is more clearly structured the development allows things to be more chaotic and unstructured one thing you'll generally find is that the themes will be broken up and then rebuilt or recombined to make new phrases or sequences of a different kind. Finally, of course, the development has to bring us back to the home tonic for the start of the recapitulation so the development of the section will typically end with an amazing passage of dominant preparation this the moment can often be a high point of tension and climax in the piece. Especially with later composers, Mozart uses this dominant preparation to shower us with classical Thunder one last note in a few cases like Beethoven's Eroica Symphony the composer might also introduce a new important theme in the development section. I consider this an expansion of Sonata form rather than traditional Sonata form but it does add an extra dimension to the structure.

Ø RECAPITULATION

Next comes the recapitulation the point of this is to recap the two groups of the exposition at least to some extent however there are always surprising twists some of these will be subtle like a change in the way they use the instruments or dynamics or something. However other changes are more significant so it's not an exact repeat of the exposition but more a kind of retelling of it in a slightly different way the two groups don't have to be sated in their entirety in fact, it's actually more important to state the second group fully than the first, because the second group's recap will no longer be in its original key but in the home tonic so the conflict that was set up in the exposition is in some sense resolved in the recapitulation there are three points of major interest in the recapitulation which gives license for the composer to do something amazing.

First is how the development leads into the recap which we've already looked at. The second interesting part is the transition whereas in the exposition the transition took us to our new key now the composer has to rewrite this passage to keep us in the home key and the composer will often use this as an excuse to do something remarkable

. Mozart's redesigned dramatic transition which takes the old transition material and runs wild the third interesting the part is really the second group and how the composer will alter the second group if he alters it at all here Mozart changes the key from b-flat major to G minor it would have been perfectly acceptable to just go to G major that's allowed in Sonata form but Mozart take sit a step further and makes it minor which completely changes the character of the theme to something more tragic. So it's a crucial moment in terms of the mood of the piece the argument has resolved itself into tragedy not positivity this has become this finally there's the coder which gives a solid ending to the piece there are many possibilities and the objective is to wrap up the movement and give it a sense of finality ending in the HOME key Mozart keeps it fairly simple and dramatically effective sometimes a composer might decide to depart from the home tonic and use the energy of the coder to find their way back again. He is my favorite example of that where Beethoven is in his home key at the end of the recap and then shoots himself in the foot and then he shoots himself again apparently with a machine gun and then he has to find his way back home again.

So that in total is our Sonata form and it's one of the most brilliant ways to develop a musical the argument which great composers have been using for generations I hope you enjoyed this post and there will definitely be more like this coming up as well as analyses of great pieces of classical and film music so please do subscribe if you want to see more and share this post if you liked it thanks for watching