SONATA FORM – RECAPITULATION| SONATA FORM | SONATA FORM EXPLAINED

We're almost at the end of our Sonata form piece now but it wouldn't be complete without this third and final recapitulation section. This is a very long word to basically say the return of the first and second subject melodies that we heard at the start of the piece in the exposition and so that's exactly what happens in the recapitulation, we're going to see the first subject again and we're going to see the second subject again. This arrival at the return of the first subject is really an important moment in the piece and lots of composers like to play around with our expectation of where that's going to be because as we get towards the end of the development section.

THE RECAPITULATION

We know this is coming if we're listening to the sonata-form movement we know that we're going to have that return in the recapitulation. So as we get towards the end of development the composer can play with our expectations, sometimes composers bring back a sort of trick the first subject so it's not really the first subject. We think that it is but it's not and whatever they do they try and build up our expectation of this an important moment where the first subject returns this, by the way, this moment there is often all about setting up a dominant seventh harmony so we're going to we know we're going back into the tonic key so if we were in this key of c-major we said this piece was in C major so we'd be expecting a section that made a lot of dominant seventh harmony because of we

need to prepare to go back to the tonic key of C major so that's what happens through that section this re transition as it's sometimes called we transition and what it's doing is just preparing the music to go back to the tonic and that's what we get so the beginning of our recapitulation.

We have the first subject and then we have our bridge passage but something interesting happens because it's kind of important that the recapitulation does its job not only of reminding us of that first or second subject but also the closing of the piece in an effective way. There'd be no point having gone that amazing journey not to have an ending to the piece that feels complete and whole I think we'd feel quite dissatisfied with the experience.

If piece just sort of ended and it wasn't really resolved and didn't end on the HOME key of the tonic key that's what we need to change really because if we were to replicate what happens here, we've got our bridge passage in the exposition and that takes us from tonic it's a dominant in this case it's just an example you might be modulating to the relative minor or the sub-dominant key or another key that closely related to the tonic key but if we did the same thing here we have a bit of a problem because we end up finishing the piece in the dominant key which probably wouldn't feel all that complete and close.

It would feel actually quite unfinished and so something different happens we don't modulate anymore and we have the bridge passage in the recapitulation we just stay happily in our tonic home key and that's the way that composes. It can just bring the thing to a close after we've heard the second subject for the second time we might have something called a coda that just another passage of music that really indicates that we're coming to the end of this quite big Sonata form structure and once you've had the end of the recapitulation that is it so that is the end of our Sonata form.

I'd say now you know approximately what to listen out for as you hear these types of the piece just have a go and have a listen and see if you can pick out the journey that we go on through the Sonata starting in the exposition moving on to the development section and finally rounding the whole thing off with a recapitulation