Talk:Sonata form
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Subject
I question the use of the word "subject" to describe themes. "Subject" is best reserved for fugue.
In the case of sonata-allegro form, it is better to describe the main ideas as "Main Theme" and "Subordinate Theme" rather than "first subject" and "second subject" as in this article. The problem with the terms used in this article becomes apparent when one needs to label subsidiary theme that are part of a group. For example, the 2nd subordiate theme would, in the terminology of the current article, be described as the "second subject of the second subject group." Accordingly I have switched terms.
- Well, "subject" is pretty widely used in the literature, but OK. I don't really like "main theme" and "subordinate theme" because I don't think the terms are very widely used in this context, and also because the suggestion that one theme is "subordinate" to the other is midleading. If you don't like "subject", how about "group"? That's pretty widely used, and (referring to your above example) something like "the second theme in the second group" is pretty clear, I think. --Camembert
"Theme group" is better. It still requires such awkward locutions as "the second theme of the second theme group." How much more elegant is "second subordinate theme?" The use of "principal" (or main) and "subordinate" themes is also widespread in the literature (e.g. Wallace Berry & Leon Stein). If the objection is that "subordinate" implies inferiority to the main theme or subservience to it, the proper interpretation is this: the subordinate theme derives its existence from the main theme. If there were no 1st theme, there would be no 2nd. Therefore, the designation "second theme" is dependent upon there being a first and is therefore subordinate to it. In some instances this subordination involves a literal contrapuntal derivative (as in Beethoven Op. 57 'Appassionata' 1st mvt). In other cases it is a figural or thematic correlation. At the least, the 2nd theme is subordinate if only by virtue of its order (one meaning of "subordinate" as per the OED, although admittedly rare).
- I think most of the time, the second theme (or subject, or group or whatever) is "subordinate" only in a temporal sense - some sort of motivic connection is the exception rather than the rule, isn't it? To me, it's putting it rather strongly to call it "subordinate" simply because it arrives later in the piece. My concern is that somebody coming along with no knowledge of sonata form is going to think that the "subordinate theme(s)" is not as important as the "principal theme(s)". I can see your point about it leading to clumsier sentences in some cases, but I think it's more important to avoid any chance of confusion. I will add a note on the "princpal/subordinate" terminology, however, so people are aware of its existence, and so they can decide to use it themselves in articles on individual pieces if they want to (I've not read Berry or Stein on this, by the way - thanks for mentioning them). --Camembert
Romantic music vs ahistorical approach
It seems to me that a lot of the recent additions to this article aren't about sonata form as such, but rather about Romantic music in general. For example:
- As the 19th Century progressed, the complexity of the sonata form grew, as new ways of moving through the harmony of a work were introduced by Brahms and Liszt. Instead of focusing exclusively on harmony which related by the circle of fifths, they used movement along circles based on minor triads or major triads. Liszt, in particular, emphasized the "Diminished 7th" as both a sound and as an organizing force for music.
I don't really see what this has to do with sonata form beyond that it is about Romantic music and, of course, some Romantic movements are in sonata form. The same goes for most of the "Sonata form in the postclassical era" section. Would most of this stuff be better located at Romantic music? --Camembert
Better to simply describe practice and let other people fight out the metaphysics of what a "sonata" movement "really" is. Liszt, Mahler, Brahms, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Hindemith, Milhaud and Debussy all thought of themselves as writing sonata form, or using symphonic structure, their works are so labelled and someone wanting to make sense of them needs to know what they were doing.
Someone looking the subject up might be interested that some music theorists, id est Rosen, believe that a sonata form is exclusively the product of the classical era, but it certainly isn't the only opinion out there. Indeed the very influential theorists Schenker and Schoenberg both thought of the sonata form as being continuously renewed, Schoenberg with his theory of "continuos variation" and Schenker with his ideas on Urlinie. Liszt and Berg scholar Searle is particularly, ah, vehement, in his rejection of the "sonata form is classical only" theory.
What might be useful is to have a better description of baroque and post-baroque sonata forms, which were harmonically more varied than the classical model, while being much more restricted in their schematic, and relative sizes of the sections. See Bocherini, Telemann and the keyboard sonatas of CPE Bach for examples of this era of sonata structure.
- I think the section needs a lot of pruning, but I think it is very important to discuss the variety of definitions and treatments of sonata form. Especially since its contentious.Hyacinth 01:01, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC) See: Susan McClary
Suggestion: have a much reduced general history of the word "sonata" and the works it is attached to, and then have separate sections on the different periods of practice, noting where different theorists disagree over various points. Stirling Newberry
- Hang on: we shouldn't be discussing the history of the word "sonata" at all - this page is about sonata form. Stuff about sonatas should live at sonata. Let's be clear here: the term "sonata form" does not mean "the structure of a sonata" (ie, four movements, quick-slow-minuet-finale or whatever). It is, as the first part of the article explains, a label attached to a particular way of structuring a single movement which may or may not be a movement in a sonata. I wonder if there's some confusion over this point.
- I'm not saying we shouldn't discuss the history of the form and how it has been stretched to breaking point by some composers - of course we must discuss those things. But my point is that most of the "romantic" and "modern" sections of the article aren't discussing that - they're discussing Romantic and 20th century style in general. Anyway, I'll leave this for a few days and see how the article develops. --Camembert
Requires historical approach
I think a lot of the problem is that it's impossible to produce a clear characterization of sonata form in all eras at once. So I've compartmentalized:
- labeling the basic description of sonata form as specifically covering the Classical sonata form
- moving all discussion of Romantic and Modern sonata form to their own sections.
I've also deleted my summary (and Stirling's amplification) of Rosen's view that the Romantic composers were "cooking a dish for which the ingredients were no longer being prepared". Since Rosen's point is controversial, it seems better (at least for now) to approach the Romantics afresh; that is, in their own terms, and not as deficient classicists.
I hope Romantic music experts among us will consider reorganizing and tightening the Romantic and Modern sections--these sections will need help of this kind, given that I imported extra material into them.
Opus33 01:40, 10 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I think Opus 33's solution is the best. Let each era speak for itself as to what it is doing, we can document it and other people can make up their minds. I will reiterate - the 19th century is loaded with composers who thought they were composing sonata forms, or at least trying to, and made changes to music to fit their conception of the idea. Again, it is best to leave to others the metaphysics of what "sonata form" really means, and document what different waves of musicians, critics and composers meant by it as it applied to their music.
That Rosen thinks that Tchaikovski's 6th symphony first movement isn't really a Sonata Allegro form is interesting, but irrelevant to the question of what Tchaikovsky is doing in the work.
Historical performance
I have removed this paragraph:
- Increasingly through the 20th century criticism has focused, not just on works, but on recordings, and hence on different interpretations of the same work by different orchestras and conductors. This has lead to a focus on audible features of a recording, such as taking repeats or not, and on the manner of presentation. One controversial area is the rise of "Historically Informed Performance", which seeks to use scholarship to discover the playing and intepretive styles used to perform works at periods in the past. The hotly debated questions of the feasibility or advisability of this project often overshadow the questions of tempo, dynamics, relative weight of sections of the sonata and "meaning" which are brought to bear in interpretting works and performances.
I don't see as it has anything at all to do with sonata form. Historically informed performance isn't limited to works in sonata form (indeed, many such performances are of works which predate the emergence of sonata form). --Camembert
- Thanks, Camembert, for taking this on; I agree with you completely. Opus33 18:10, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Sonata vs Sonata form
Once again the generic term for a work in sonata form is "sonata". Hence when discussing the sonata form, "sonatas" refers to all works in sonata form, not merely "piano sonatas".
- Is that really true? Such a general meaning of "sonata" is new to me, and I'd have to say it's non-standard. Can you (or anybody) give an example of a writer using it in this way? In any case, it seems to me misleading at best to call a tone poem (for example) which happens to be in sonata form a "sonata", so I think it's a usage best avoided in the article.
- I feel similarly about the use of "sonata form" to mean "the structure of a sonata" (ie, four movements, quick-slow-minuet-quick) - even if some writers do this (do they? if so, who?), it is unusual and potentially misleading: the normal usage of "sonata form" (at least in my experience) is in reference to a single-movement structure. --Camembert
When did sonata form come to dominate all movements?
I've removed this paragraph:
- The final quartets of Beethoven also had an effect on the layout of "sonata" works, in that gradually it became more and more common to have all of the movements of a work be in "sonata-allegro" form. While Charles Rosen has argued that, properly understood, this was always the case, in the 19th and early 20th century, it came to mean specifically the use of the academically laid out first movement form.
because the use of sonata form for all movements (except, of course, the minuet/scherzo) was common long before the late quartets of Beethoven. Thus, for example, Haydn's "Philosopher" symphony (ca. 1765), Mozart's 40th Symphony, and Beethoven's Sixth and Eighth Symphonies all use sonata form for every movement except the minuet/scherzo.
The paragraph segues into the "academicization" of sonata form in the 19th century, but this can hardly be from the influence of late Beethoven. Opus33
- I've put it back. Stirling Newberry
- Hi Sterling,
- Looks like the software is giving trouble--I thought I had reverted it myself by accident. Hence the sequence "delete"-"revert"-"delete"-"revert", which gives more of an impression of an edit war than what is actually happening.
- This aside, I gave a reason for what I did, and I urge you to do the same. If you really think you are right, it would be appropriate for you to cite examples from the late Beethoven quartets that prove your point. Opus33 17:55, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I'm simply quoting the "received" wisdom on the subject, for example:
"In addition, Beethoven realizes the essence of the most important of classical forms - the sonata form - with strongly differentiated first and second theme groups, highly dramatic development sections and codas that sometimes rival the development in size. The importance of the sonata form can be particularly seen in a work such as the first string quartet of Op.59, where even the slow movement and scherzo are in sonata form."
Allen Krenetz
as well as WS Newman and Tovey.
If you feel that we should revisit this revealed wisdom and make a more careful argument, or that I have phrased the old one poorly, by all means we should make amendations and improvments. Stirling Newberry
- Perhaps we have a minor misunderstanding over which quartets of Beethoven were influential in this regard. Op. 59 no. 1 is a "middle period" quartet, and I think Krenetz is right about these being influential. If one single formal idea predominates in the late quartets, I think it is variation, not sonata at all, which comes in third behind fugue as an organizational/developmental principle. (On an aside, I think it could be argued that the scherzo of op. 59 no. 1 is not in sonata form at all--if it is, it is one of the most bizarre I have ever heard!) Maybe we just need to edit out the word "final" from "final quartets." Peace, Antandrus 03:50, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Stirling Newberry I've rewritten the section on "sonatification". I think this version is more NPOV, since it lists this as a theory and who held it, more accurate, since it takes into account the examples from Opus33 and probably better written. I hope people will read and comment on whether this is heading in the right direction.
- Just out of curiosity: who is Allen Krenetz? I've never heard of him. Who is WS Newman, for that matter? Ernest Newman I know about, but WS is a new one to me. (Don't worry - I know who Tovey is ;) --Camembert
Stirling Newberry Krenetz is a prof of musicology who specializes in Beethoven. I don't think he is famous particularly.
- Hmm... don't know who Krenetz is, but WS Newman must be William Stein Newman, American musicologist (he's in the New Grove). Wrote a three-volume History of the Sonata Idea. Sounds like a Wikipedia article to me. :-) Antandrus 15:39, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Stirling Newberry I'm feeling old now, WS Newman's three volume work was considered the latest in scholarship when I was learning composition.
- Oh heck, he's even in Grove Concise, which I have, and checked, but somehow I missed him... I shall now write a stub on him to atone for my shortsightedness ;) --Camembert
- A predecessor of sorts of sonata form, the suite movement (differing in its most advanced state - at least according to C Thorpe-Davie whose musicology, I will readily agree, is probably not only years old but also years out of date too - in one detail, from the simple form of 'sonata form' as later known: the repetition, in the dominant, of the opening bars at the beginning of the second repeated section) had taken over entire, or almost entire, pieces towards the end of the Baroque in any case... between the typical suite movement, and the earliest sonata-movement, he argued (I believe) that there was a gradual change. (As to WS Newman, the last especially of his three volumes was responsible for my introduction to the music of among others Felix Draeseke and Robert Fuchs.) Schissel 04:42, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)
What is sonata?
Please someone knowledgable modify the introductory paragraph. The first line should mention that its a musical term (somhow). If someone has no idea what western musical terms mean, he would be completely lost at the end of the first paragraph. I mean words like movement dont mean much to people not familiar with western classical music. Also metion in the first paragraph if sonata is a piano heavy composition or not, my impression is that it is, but maybe I am wrong.
Hope this helps...
--Spundun 01:10, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
- Works called sonatas often are (not always, and even then this is true more of the period after the Baroque era than afterwards), while sonata form can apply to compositions with any instrumentation - voices, instruments, both. Schissel : bowl listen 01:29, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
translations
i need to translate an article for the italian wikipedia, about the sonata.
i know it's ignominous, but we still miss this entry.....
i'm sorry for me beeing so ignorant, but since i found this and that, which one is the best for me to translate?
thanking you all in advance
--joana 15:25, 24 May 2005 (UTC)
