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Dan Coren
When I started this series on sonata-form, I certainly didn't envision myself discussing anything as esoteric as the properties of augmented sixths, yet I find that I've devoted the last two installments to that very subject. The polite but puzzled reaction from my tiny fan base has persuaded me that we don't need yet a third one. So even though I previously promised to expound on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, it's high time that I move on to the next subject: sonata-form recapitulations.
Here is the basic mission of the recapitulation:
"¢ The tension that builds up at the end of the development is released into a return to the material that launched the exposition.
"¢ The material from the exposition is restated, for the most part in its original order, but this time in such a way that the modulation to the dominant, the topic to which I've devoted so much attention, doesn't take place. Instead, the music ends up staying in the tonic.
It sounds simple enough; in practice, though, recapitulation in sonata-form is anything but. As this excerpt from Wikipedia so nicely puts it, it's the least predictable aspect of sonata-form.
Mozart's dependability
As I've said time and again, there's no doubt in my mind that for the composers themselves, the whole point of sonata-form was the dramatic return to and subsequent affirmation of a home key. That return was virtually always synchronized with the return to the material that started the exposition.
As we just saw in the previous installment, in Mozart's sonata-forms, the approach to the tonic may be extremely complex, but once there, Mozart (and Haydn, too, in the vast majority of cases) can be depended upon to give you a literal reprise, at least for a few seconds, of the material that began the exposition. Here is a nice, straightforward example from the first movement of Mozart's "Linz" Symphony (the exposition of which was the subject of an earlier essay); as in all the examples in this installment, first you'll hear the beginning of the exposition, followed by the very end of the development and the beginning of the recapitulation.
As we'll see in subsequent articles, Mozart's and Haydn's recapitulations may diverge from the exposition in the most sophisticated and complicated ways, but the unaltered restatement of the opening material at the beginning of their recapitulations is, in their music, the most dependable signpost in the sonata-form landscape.
Beethoven the revolutionary
What about Beethoven? You'll notice that I didn't include him in that generalization, and for good reason. If you limited yourself only to the beginnings of Beethoven's recapitulations, you'd get a good start toward understanding the ways he transformed sonata-form over the course of his career.
In a series of piano sonatas written around 1800— between his first and second symphonies— Beethoven seems to have experimented with the idea of abandoning sonata-form entirely. None of the four movements of the Op. 26 Piano Sonata uses it, and of the two piano sonatas that comprise Op. 27, both of which are called Sonata quasi una fantasia (Op. 27, #1 is hardly ever played but Op. 27 #2 is the famous "Moonlight" Sonata), only the last movement of the "Moonlight" does.
But in the first movement of his Op. 28, Beethoven returned to the sonata-form with a vengeance and never looked back. It's a mystery to me why Op. 28, an enormous sonata full of revolutionary ideas, is almost never played. So here's a big chunk of it: the climax of the development through the beginning of the recapitulation.
Drama, and more drama
One can fairly say that starting with Op. 28, Beethoven devoted the rest of his career to intensifying the inherent drama of sonata-form, finally drilling so deeply into its bedrock that the form itself became barely recognizable in his very last works: the five string quartets of the late 1820s.
I can think of no better example of this dramatic intensification than a passage I used near the beginning of this series, the beginning of the recapitulation in the first movement of the "Waldstein" Piano Sonata, Op. 53. In my view of things, this is the movement in which Beethoven radically transformed the basic underpinnings of classical sonata-form as in no other single work, save his Ninth Symphony.
Extreme though this passage may be, the beginning of this recapitulation still follows Mozart's and Haydn's practice of literally restating the music from the beginning of the movement. At around this time, though, Beethoven began writing recapitulations that transform the opening material; to put it in a romantic light, it's as if the opening material was forced to metamorphose in response to the epic struggles of getting through a Beethoven development section.
And you thought he was dreaming by a brook
Here are two such examples. First, the recapitulation of the second movement of the "Pastorale" Symphony, in which it seems that while Beethoven was dreaming by the side of his brook the opening material went from spring to the full bloom of summer. Second, the recapitulation of the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, in which the little bit of chamber music that sneaks out of the movement's slow introduction to begin the exposition returns in full triumphal regalia.
In these passages, and indeed in all Beethoven's recapitulations through his middle period"“ that is, until 1812"“ the material from the beginning of the exposition may be transformed, but there is never any doubt about where the recapitulation begins. Indeed, the transformation of the material is, it seems, made to happen by the urgency of getting back home to the tonic.
Something funny about the harmony
After 1812, though, everything changed: here, a dozen years later, is the beginning of the Ninth Symphony, followed by the hair-raising chaos that begins its recapitulation. Yes, this really is the recapitulation, and, yes, it is a return to the tonic "“ sort of.
There is something funny about the harmony here, something that makes it tough to pin down the exact moment where the recapitulation begins. But as is often the case in Beethoven's most powerful musical moments, this effect is due to a straightforward musical idea—one that's fairly easy to hear, as I hope to demonstrate in the next article. ïµ
To read previous articles in this series from the beginning, click here.
Here is the basic mission of the recapitulation:
"¢ The tension that builds up at the end of the development is released into a return to the material that launched the exposition.
"¢ The material from the exposition is restated, for the most part in its original order, but this time in such a way that the modulation to the dominant, the topic to which I've devoted so much attention, doesn't take place. Instead, the music ends up staying in the tonic.
It sounds simple enough; in practice, though, recapitulation in sonata-form is anything but. As this excerpt from Wikipedia so nicely puts it, it's the least predictable aspect of sonata-form.
Mozart's dependability
As I've said time and again, there's no doubt in my mind that for the composers themselves, the whole point of sonata-form was the dramatic return to and subsequent affirmation of a home key. That return was virtually always synchronized with the return to the material that started the exposition.
As we just saw in the previous installment, in Mozart's sonata-forms, the approach to the tonic may be extremely complex, but once there, Mozart (and Haydn, too, in the vast majority of cases) can be depended upon to give you a literal reprise, at least for a few seconds, of the material that began the exposition. Here is a nice, straightforward example from the first movement of Mozart's "Linz" Symphony (the exposition of which was the subject of an earlier essay); as in all the examples in this installment, first you'll hear the beginning of the exposition, followed by the very end of the development and the beginning of the recapitulation.
As we'll see in subsequent articles, Mozart's and Haydn's recapitulations may diverge from the exposition in the most sophisticated and complicated ways, but the unaltered restatement of the opening material at the beginning of their recapitulations is, in their music, the most dependable signpost in the sonata-form landscape.
Beethoven the revolutionary
What about Beethoven? You'll notice that I didn't include him in that generalization, and for good reason. If you limited yourself only to the beginnings of Beethoven's recapitulations, you'd get a good start toward understanding the ways he transformed sonata-form over the course of his career.
In a series of piano sonatas written around 1800— between his first and second symphonies— Beethoven seems to have experimented with the idea of abandoning sonata-form entirely. None of the four movements of the Op. 26 Piano Sonata uses it, and of the two piano sonatas that comprise Op. 27, both of which are called Sonata quasi una fantasia (Op. 27, #1 is hardly ever played but Op. 27 #2 is the famous "Moonlight" Sonata), only the last movement of the "Moonlight" does.
But in the first movement of his Op. 28, Beethoven returned to the sonata-form with a vengeance and never looked back. It's a mystery to me why Op. 28, an enormous sonata full of revolutionary ideas, is almost never played. So here's a big chunk of it: the climax of the development through the beginning of the recapitulation.
Drama, and more drama
One can fairly say that starting with Op. 28, Beethoven devoted the rest of his career to intensifying the inherent drama of sonata-form, finally drilling so deeply into its bedrock that the form itself became barely recognizable in his very last works: the five string quartets of the late 1820s.
I can think of no better example of this dramatic intensification than a passage I used near the beginning of this series, the beginning of the recapitulation in the first movement of the "Waldstein" Piano Sonata, Op. 53. In my view of things, this is the movement in which Beethoven radically transformed the basic underpinnings of classical sonata-form as in no other single work, save his Ninth Symphony.
Extreme though this passage may be, the beginning of this recapitulation still follows Mozart's and Haydn's practice of literally restating the music from the beginning of the movement. At around this time, though, Beethoven began writing recapitulations that transform the opening material; to put it in a romantic light, it's as if the opening material was forced to metamorphose in response to the epic struggles of getting through a Beethoven development section.
And you thought he was dreaming by a brook
Here are two such examples. First, the recapitulation of the second movement of the "Pastorale" Symphony, in which it seems that while Beethoven was dreaming by the side of his brook the opening material went from spring to the full bloom of summer. Second, the recapitulation of the first movement of the Seventh Symphony, in which the little bit of chamber music that sneaks out of the movement's slow introduction to begin the exposition returns in full triumphal regalia.
In these passages, and indeed in all Beethoven's recapitulations through his middle period"“ that is, until 1812"“ the material from the beginning of the exposition may be transformed, but there is never any doubt about where the recapitulation begins. Indeed, the transformation of the material is, it seems, made to happen by the urgency of getting back home to the tonic.
Something funny about the harmony
After 1812, though, everything changed: here, a dozen years later, is the beginning of the Ninth Symphony, followed by the hair-raising chaos that begins its recapitulation. Yes, this really is the recapitulation, and, yes, it is a return to the tonic "“ sort of.
There is something funny about the harmony here, something that makes it tough to pin down the exact moment where the recapitulation begins. But as is often the case in Beethoven's most powerful musical moments, this effect is due to a straightforward musical idea—one that's fairly easy to hear, as I hope to demonstrate in the next article. ïµ
To read previous articles in this series from the beginning, click here.
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