Newsgroup: it.arti.musica.classica
Titolo: Le Sonate ( era : Quizzettino )

Ovvero quel luogo dove il " Quizzettino " del talebano Vinix ,mi ha
riportato dopo anni di esilio, quando ha proposto il duo Kraus -
Martinoli con la "loro" VB 196.
E qui, ancor piu' della altre volte, sento l'assoluta inadeguatezza di
chi la musica non l'ha mai studiata e la conosce solo di riflesso,  e
quindi gliene sfugge il cuore, ma non l'anima, spero.
Parlo delle Sonate, un mondo a se, nell' universo musicale, lontano
dal sinfonismo titanico dei Beethoven , dei Brukner, dei Brahms, dei
Mahler quanto possono esserlo gli spettacolari Rubens  dai  raccolti
Fattori, o le lancinanti poesie d'un Ungaretti dalle odi di Rilke.
Brani di tre movimenti di pochi minuti ciascuno, eppure…non e'
esagerato affermare che l'ascolto di un Martinoli-Kraus, o delle
sonate di Mozart, generano emozioni struggenti e profonde, che
lasciano il segno  forse ancor piu'  dei giganti della Sinfonia.
L'incanto elegante e sinuoso delle variazioni che non finiscono mai, e
che se riascolti dieci volte di fila lo stesso movimento, finisci con
l'ascoltare dieci brani diversi e resti ogni volta sorpreso e
affascinato.
Ho incominciato con il Kraus di Martinoli ( ma che bel suono il
fortepiano ! ) e adesso me la sto vedendo con Mozart, ormai da giorni
: una festa !
 Infine una domanda agli esperti : qual'e' la storia della Sonata,
come ci si arriva nel tempo e con chi ?
Benedetto Zaccaria

 come ci si arriva nel tempo e con chi ?
A parte il fatto che non sono un esperto, ti riferisci proprio 
alla Sonata (alla forma sonata) o più in generale alla musica da 
camera ? Per me la musica da camera è stata la chiave di volta 
per entrare nel mondo di autori come Brahms e Schubert, per i 
quali rappresenta una parte fondamentale della produzione. Ci 
sono capolavori assoluti dell'intera storia della musica, penso 
al quintetto per archi di Schubert o al quintetto per pianoforte 
e archi di Brahms (o al Quatuor pour la fin du temps di 
Messiaen, che magari potrebbe sembrarti più ostico). Ma allo 
stesso livello ci sono i quartetti di Mozart, e tutta la 
produzione cameristica degli autori maggiori andrebbe 
conosciuta. Ancora oggi a dire il vero ascolto molta più musica 
da camera che sinfonica.
M.

 potrebbe sembrarti più ostico)
Il Quatuor l'ho suonato diverse volte in ambienti non propriamente
"istituzionali" (l'ultima in una chiesa frequentata da villeggianti)
notando ogni volta con stupore il rapimento del pubblico dinnazi a questo
lavoro così lungo e complesso ma dall'enorme potenza mistica. Credo che
anche ascoltandolo in cd non si possa non rimanerne rapiti.
ciao
marino
P.S. Come sta la creatura? E la mamma?

camera ?
Alla Sonata.
Il mio approccio con la musica da camera e' stato assai tardivo, ma ho
avuto, anche li', delle sorprese bellissime.
Ma ascoltando Martinoli esguire Kraus e poi ascoltando quelle di
Mozart, son rimasto, come suol dirsi, basito.
Fino adesso credevo che nulla potesse superare in potenza espressiva,
e concisione, Chopin, ma, come al solito, mi sbagliavo.
Hai presente il primo movimento della K 331 ?
Da giorni lo sto ascoltando anche cinque o sei volte di fila.
Benedetto Zaccaria

 P.S. Come sta la creatura? E la mamma?
Benone tutti e due :-)
M.

 come ci si arriva nel tempo e con chi ?
So che hai frequentato la perfida Albione in gioventù.
Ed ecco dunque che ti dedico questi pochi mega :-)))
(questa è la storia della sonata. Se desideri invece sapere qualcosa sulla
*forma* sonata, fischia e arrivano altri piccoli mega)
Sonata
(from It. suonare: ‘to sound’).
A term used to denote a piece of music usually but not necessarily
consisting of several movements, almost invariably instrumental and designed
to be performed by a soloist or a small ensemble. The solo and duet sonatas
of the Classical and Romantic periods with which it is now most frequently
associated generally incorporate a movement or movements in what has
misleadingly come to be called Sonata form (or ‘first-movement form’), but
in its actual usage over more than five centuries the title ‘sonata’ has
been applied with much broader formal and stylistic connotations than that.
From the 13th century onwards the word ‘sonnade’ was used in literary
sources simply to denote an instrumental piece, as for example in the
Provençal 13th-century Vida da Santa Douce: ‘Mens que sonavan la rediera
sonada de matinas’. In a mystery play of 1486 the phrase ‘Orpheus fera ses
sonnades’ occurs as a stage direction. Cognate usages appear to be the
‘sennets’ called for in Elizabethan plays and the term ‘sonada’ found in
German manuscripts of the same period for trumpet calls and fanfares, a
later manifestation of which were the more extended Turmsonaten (‘tower
sonatas’) of the 17th and 18th centuries. In El maestro (1536) Luys Milán
referred to ‘villancicos y sonadas’, including among the latter pavans and
fantasias. Gorzanis gave ‘sonata’ as the actual title for passamezzos and
paduanas in the first book of his Intabolatura di liuto (1561), and it is
similarly employed in later collections of lute music. The rapid development
of instrumental music towards the close of the 16th century was accompanied
by a plethora of terms which were employed in a confused and often imprecise
manner. ‘Sonata’ was one of them, although it was nearly always applied to
something played as opposed to something sung (‘cantata’).
1. Baroque
(i) Introduction.
In the 17th century title-pages often used the term ‘sonata’ generically to
cover all the instrumental pieces in a volume, which might well contain no
single work actually called ‘sonata’; there are no sonatas, for example, in
Buonamente’s Il quinto libro de varie sonate, sinfonie, gagliarde, corrente,
e ariette (Venice, 1629). As a genre label, the term competed with others
(especially canzone and sinfonia, but also capriccio, concerto, fantasia,
ricercar, toccata) that were applied to individual pieces difficult to
distinguish from sonatas, even in the works of an individual composer within
a single printed volume. Only after mid-century did ‘sonata’ finally
displace its competitors as the most appropriate term for such instrumental
works.
For Brossard (Dictionaire, 1703) the sonata was ‘to all sorts of instruments
what the cantata is to the voice’, and was designed ‘according to the
composer’s fancy’, free of the constraints imposed by dance, text or the
rules of counterpoint. Brossard categorized sonatas as da camera or da
chiesa, a division that has informed much later commentary; however, the
former term, while it appeared on title-pages more frequently than the
latter, was rarely applied to specific sets of dance movements before
Corelli’s op.2 of 1685. The mature Baroque sonata did acquire a set of more
or less consistent attributes, even if copyists still wavered between
‘concerto’ and ‘sonata’ for a work borrowing something from each genre. By
1750 sonatas were independent pieces, usually in three or four separate
movements, which could be heard not only in church and chamber, but in
concert or as interval music at the theatre, where they might be played
orchestrally rather than by the chamber ensembles for which they had
originally been written. J.G. Walther’s concise definition (Musicalisches
Lexicon, 1732) is accurate for his time, and indeed for much of the Baroque
period: ‘the sonata is a piece for instruments, especially the violin, of a
serious and artful nature, in which adagios and allegros alternate’. Here
the use of the term and the development of the genre from Gabrieli’s Sacrae
symphoniae (1597) to the galant sonatas of Scarlatti and Telemann will be
traced. But discussion cannot be limited strictly to sonatas so called,
since often enough what are (and were) recognizably sonatas appeared under
labels referring to another genre (capriccio), or to the number of parts
(solo, quadro), or even to proper names (Cazzati’s La Galeazza, 1648). The
main concerns in what follows will be the origins and stylistic development,
sociocultural functions, performing practices, dissemination and reception
of the sonata and its near relatives. (For more comprehensive lists of
composers, arranged by chronology and geography, see NewmanSBE, 4th edn.)
(ii) Origins and early development.
The instrumental canzona, which had grown in Italy from instrumental
arrangements of imported chansons, has usually been regarded as the most
significant precursor of the Baroque sonata. The similarities between many
early sonatas and contemporary canzonas are undeniable: sectional structure
defined by contrasts in metre and tempo, reliance on imitative contrapuntal
texture, and immediate repetition or final recapitulation of the opening
section. For Michael Praetorius sonatas and canzonas were so intimately
related that he cited the ‘canzonas and sinfonie of Giovanni Gabrieli’ in
his description of the sonata, and noted that ‘sonatas are composed in a
stately and magnificent manner like motets, but the canzonas have many black
notes and move along crisply, gaily and fast’ (Syntagma musicum, iii, 1618,
2/1619). Although there have been many attempts to distinguish between the
two genres, composers and publishers seem to have used the terms
interchangeably. Both the generic meaning of ‘sonata’ (e.g. Tarquinio Merula
’s Canzoni overo sonate concertate per chiesa e camera, 1637), and the close
relation between the two genres (e.g. in Cazzati’s first two volumes of
instrumental works, Canzoni, 1642, and Il secondo libro delle sonate, 1648)
help to explain this interchangeability. Moreover, local usage may have
varied: Montalbano, born in Bologna but working in Palermo, published a set
of sinfonias in 1629 that might well have been termed ‘sonate concertate’
had they and he been in Venice with Castello. Even a composer’s occupation
and training are relevant, since organists tended to write canzonas, while
virtuoso cornett players and violinists more often produced sonatas. After
1620, however, the term canzone was used less and less, although its
stylistic influence remained evident in the sonata’s fast imitative
movements (actually labelled ‘canzona’ by Purcell).
The close relation between the canzonas and sonatas of the early Baroque is
clearly reflected in Gabrieli’s two publications (1597, 1615) and in those
of Gussago, Corradini and Riccio. Some early sonatas (Gussago, 1608), are
indistinguishable from the most conservative of four- or eight-voice
canzonas; others combine old and new features. Gabrieli left sonatas or
canzonas for as few as three and as many as 22 parts, often grouped in two
or more choirs. Their association with sacred vocal music (in Sacrae
symphoniae), publication in Venice (which remained central to the
dissemination of Italian instrumental music until Bolognese firms began to
offer real competition in the 1660s), virtuoso upper parts and precisely
specified instrumentation are all typical of the earliest sonatas. The
Venetian polychoral style was influential even on works for small ensembles:
in one of Nicolò Corradini’s sonatas (1624), pairs of unspecified treble and
bass instruments engage in dialogue and join together at cadences just as
they would in a double-choir canzona. Several canzonas for one to four
instruments and basso continuo and a single ‘Sonata a 4’ from Riccio’s 1620
collection descend from the same tradition, although Riccio incorporated
more modern elements (tremolo, virtuoso flourishes, precise instrumentation)
than did Corradini. Buonamente (Sonate et canzoni … libro sesto, 1636) and
Frescobaldi (Il primo libro delle canzoni, 1628) wrote similar pieces for
one to six instruments. The modern scoring in few parts (for one to three
instruments) often invoked the label ‘sonata’ in these pre-1650 prints;
thus, Marini’s Sonate, symphonie, canzoni op.8 (1629) reserves ‘canzone’ for
larger ensembles, but most composers made no such terminological
distinctions. One might compare the instrumental works in few parts to
Viadana’s Concerti ecclesiastici (1602), composed in response to the
practice of performing four-voice motets as solos or duos with basso
continuo. While evidence that canzonas a 4 were performed with such reduced
forces is lacking (although many do survive as both organ and ensemble
pieces), continuo players apparently provided the imitative entries ‘missing
’ in the few-voiced pieces, whose model was still the multi-voice canzona
(the entries are actually supplied by Montalbano in the continuo part to his
solo sinfonias).
The ‘stil moderno’ sonatas of Dario Castello (1621, 1629), while still
indebted to the ensemble canzona, are even more closely allied to vocal
monody. Constructed of sharply contrasting sections, they often begin with
an imitative ‘canzona’, and continue with an instrumental dialogue
reminiscent of the polychoral idiom, but these sonatas also incorporate
virtuoso solos or duets, candenzas, and ‘unmistakable manifestations of
Monteverdi’s affections, especially the stile concitato’ (Selfridge-Field,
1975). Riemann was not alone in seeing incipient four-movement designs in
Castello’s multi-sectional sonatas, but other scholars have rejected such
analyses, arguing that predictability itself is ‘wholly incompatible with
the essential spirit of the stil moderno sonata, which sought to overwhelm
the listener in a wealth of conflicting emotions’ (Allsop, 1992). Castello’s
inclusion of at least one solo as well as an earlier contrapuntal section is
predictable enough, but the four-movement sonata favoured by later composers
such as Vivaldi or Albinoni is rather far removed. Farina and Marini wrote
sonatas comparable to those of Castello.
The late 16th-century diminution practices described by Bassano, among
others, provided another important source of early sonata style, as in the
variations constructed around a repeated melody or bass line by Salamone
Rossi, Buonamente and, later, Uccellini. Such pieces were called sonatas
(Rossi’s Sonata sopra l’aria di Ruggiero, Il terzo libro de varie sonate,
1613) or arias (Uccellini, 1642 and 1645), or simply carried the name of the
borrowed tune (Buonamente’s Le tanto tempo ormai, 1626). A close relation,
and one of the few sonatas involving voices, is the ‘Sonata sopra Sancta
Maria’ from Monteverdi’s Vespers (1610), in which pairs of violins and
cornetts weave a lively commentary around the sopranos’ repeated phrase
‘Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis’, supported by a quartet of bass and tenor
instruments. Corelli’s ‘Ciacona’ (op.2, 1685) and ‘Follia’ (op.5, 1700), as
well the virtuoso variations of Schmelzer, Biber and J.J. Walther,
ultimately derive from the same source.
Rossi also used ‘sonata’ for several short binary pieces, which may have
served as introductions to larger compositions; among his contemporaries
‘sinfonia’ was the more usual name for such works. Their trio scoring arose
naturally enough from an identical disposition of voices and instruments in
sacred and secular concerted music (e.g. Monteverdi’s Chioma d'oro for two
sopranos, two violins and continuo). Often the two ‘solo’ instruments move
in parallel 3rds, supported by a simpler bass; in some works such trios are
juxtaposed with a larger force, as in Bernardi’s ‘Sonata in sinfonia à 4’
(1613). Sonatas ‘a due’ (for two solo instruments and basso continuo) and ‘a
tre’ (for three soloists and basso continuo) make up most of the sonata
literature for a century after 1620, although the earlier variety among solo
instruments (ss, sb, bb, ssb, sss) was reduced after 1660 to a focus on the
type for two trebles and continuo, and strings increasingly displaced other
instruments (cornett, bassoon, trombone) found in the earliest sonatas.
Compare Brossard’s recognition of the variety of sonata scorings in 1703
(‘We have Sonatas from one to seven or eight parts; but usually they are
performed by a single Violin, or with two Violins and a thorough Bass for
the Harpsichord, and frequently a more figured Bass for the Bass Violin’)
with Rousseau’s focus on the soloist (Dictionnaire, 1768: ‘The Sonata is
ordinarily made for a single instrument which recites, accompanied by a
thorough bass’). Solos, more demanding than most duos and trios, were
included in several early published volumes (by Castello, Farina, Biagio
Marini and Montalbano), but by 1652 only Bertoli, Uccellini and G.A. Leoni
had devoted entire collections to solo sonatas.
The foregoing discussion has concentrated on developments in Italy for good
reason: while sonatas were composed before 1650 north of the Alps, it was
Italian immigrants who were in the main responsible. Buonamente worked in
Vienna for a time, as did Valentini and Bertali for much of their careers;
Bernardi went to Salzburg; Marini left Venice for Parma and Neuburg,
returning only late in his career; and Farina carried the Italian sonata and
a virtuoso approach to violin playing to Dresden. These Italian immigrants
far outnumbered the few native composers of sonatas (Kindermann, Johann
Staden, Vierdanck); only after 1650 did many non-Italian composers begin to
interest themselves in the genre, but those who did made technical demands
equal to or greater than those in the Italian repertory.
(iii) Development, 1650–1750.
Riemann argued that what he somewhat pejoratively called the ‘patchwork’
canzona (Flickwerk) of the early 17th century evolved into the sonata as the
individual sections grew in length and were reduced in number, until by
Corelli’s time they had achieved the status of separate movements. That much
repeated view ignores the persistence of multi-sectional alongside
multi-movement designs (e.g. in the sonatas of Uccellini, G.B. Vitali,
Biber, J.J. Walther, Buxtehude); however, the observation is not unrelated
to the mid-century repertory in which many sonatas do consist primarily of
tonally closed, if brief, movements. Merula (who called his serious pieces
‘canzone’ as late as 1651, reserving ‘sonata’ for a few lighter works),
Cazzati and Legrenzi favoured such three- or four-movement structures,
although they shared no single pattern, and individual ‘movements’ are not
always tonally closed. Legrenzi left three books devoted entirely to
sonatas, and another that included sonatas and dances, published between
1655 and 1673. (A further collection, op.18, published c1695, is lost.) A
clear division into separate movements (often including one in slow triple
time), a focus on duos and trios, and precise specification of
instrumentation are all evident in these collections. In some of the
sonatas, the opening material returns at the end, as in the canzona; others
differ from the ‘Corellian’ model only in their lack of an opening slow
movement. In contrast to these ‘church’ sonatas, Legrenzi’s six chamber
sonatas (op.4, 1656) are single movements in simple binary form; G.M.
Bononcini used sonata da camera similarly, for an abstract single-movement
work rather than a dance suite (op.3, 1669). Maurizio Cazzati, controversial
maestro di cappella in Bologna (1657–71), published eight collections that
include sonatas for duos, trios and larger ensembles; three from op.35
include trumpet, a hint of the later association between S Petronio and that
instrument. The sonatas in his widely disseminated op.18 (1656) usually
consist of four movements: duple-metre imitative, grave, fast triple metre
and quick imitative finale. Tarquinio Merula favoured a similar plan: fugal
opening, fast triple-time movement, slow movement and vigorous finale.
Uccellini also moved away from the simple canzona model towards longer and
more virtuoso sonatas, usually divided into three or four sections by
changes of metre and tempo.
Cazzati’s pupil G.B. Vitali, and Vitali’s Modenese contemporaries Colombi
and Bononcini, continued to focus on duos and trios in some ten volumes of
sonatas published between 1666 and 1689. Already steeped in those
traditions, Corelli had arrived by 1675 in Rome, where Colista, Stradella
and Lonati composed sonata-like sinfonias, usually for two violins, lute and
continuo. Since the Roman material circulated in manuscript, it has been
somewhat underemphasized in most histories of instrumental music, but
Corelli surely adopted the slow introductions (rare before the 1680s),
strict fugal movements and triple-metre finales from his Roman colleagues.
Despite the many references to Corelli’s sonatas (published 1681–1700) as
normative, the four-movement model usually attributed to him
(slow–fast–slow–fast) is present in only half of his published sonatas.
North of the Alps, Bertali’s ensemble sonatas, followed by the solo and
ensemble sonatas of Schmelzer, Biber, J.J. Walther and Buxtehude, recall the
drama and virtuosity of the Venetian stile moderno at a time when sonata
composition in Italy had become more standardized. Their virtuoso solos
incorporated multiple stops and athletic string crossings; moreover, they
continuted to depend on sectional rather than multi-movement designs in
which successive events are on the whole less predictable than they are in
Corelli’s sonatas. They differ from the Italian models in other ways as
well: virtuoso writing for the bass viol (Johannes Schenck, Buxtehude),
greater interest in scordatura tunings (Schmelzer, Biber), and a continuing
devotion to ensemble sonatas a 5 or more, reminiscent of Venetian polychoral
style, but with even more demanding treble parts for cornett, violin or
trumpet. The legacy of the ensemble sonata (and perhaps the continued
cultivation of the viol) may help to explain the more demanding bass parts:
when Corelli and his north Italian contemporaries were writing duos or trios
in which the violone or cello was at best an optional inclusion, Buxtehude
composed sonatas for violin and bass viol in which the instruments have
equally virtuoso roles. (But it should be remembered that the solo cello
sonata did emerge in Bologna at about the same time, in works of Domenico
Gabrielli and others.) In addition, the Austrian and German composers
devoted more energy than did the Italians to the sonata-suite, in which an
abstract introductory movement is followed by a fairly standard set of
dances; more than 20 such collections appeared between 1658 and 1698.
Rosenmüller’s Venetian publication of such chamber sonatas (1667) had found
no Italian imitators, despite a growing tendency to group dances by key
rather than type. In the northern prints ‘sonata’ or ‘sonatina’ was the term
most frequently attached to the non-dance preludial movement (Rosenmüller
used ‘sinfonia’); especially well represented are Biber, Dietrich Becker,
J.J. Walther and Schenck. A few native English composers wrote sonatas at
mid-century, influenced by the national devotion to the viol and by their
acquaintance with Italian and German sonatas. The latter they knew both at
home (Jenkins was associated with the family of Francis North, who owned
copies of works by Schmelzer, Colista, Cazzati, Stradella and Pietro Degli
Antoni), and by virtue of their foreign employment (William Young in
Austria, and Henry Butler in Spain). Henry Purcell’s two published sets of
sonatas (1683, 1697), after ‘the most fam’d Italian Masters’, shared the
growing English market with sonatas by Italian and German immigrants (e.g.
Matteis, Finger, Pepusch).
After 1700, Italians continued to produce sonatas for both domestic and
international markets; Vivaldi, Albinoni and the Marcellos in Venice, F.M.
Veracini in Florence, Somis in Turin and Tartini in Padua were some of the
main contributors. Moreover, such Italian émigrés as Locatelli in Amsterdam
and Geminiani in London brought the latest sonata fashions to northern
Europe. That most were violinists is telling, although the oboe, flute,
cello and other instruments are also strongly represented in their
collective output. In these volumes the four-movement plan finally dominates
(although the third movement may not be tonally closed); the emphasis begins
to turn towards the solo sonata (nearly three-quarters of Vivaldi’s sonatas,
and all of Veracini’s are for one instrument and continuo); and the
church-chamber distinction disappears. In Corelli’s ‘church’ sonatas, the
final two movements are often dances (sarabanda, giga), but in many of
Vivaldi’s sonatas the first two movements also employ binary forms. The
keyboard, relatively neglected by earlier sonata composers, begins to
receive some attention, especially from Domenico Scarlatti, who focussed on
one-movement binary forms, some of which are paired in the sources. Other
composers of keyboard sonatas (most in two or three movements) include
Benedetto Marcello, Giustini, Durante and Platti.
According to Brossard, France was overrun with Italian sonatas early in the
18th century, and French composers soon began to contribute. Most notably
these include Leclair l’aîné, preceded by Dornel and Blavet, and even
Couperin, who wrote at least three sonatas in the 1690s (published much
later as preludes to Les nations). Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre left a
dozen sonatas for one or two violins and bass; six were published in 1707,
but Brossard apparently copied two about 1695, making them among the
earliest composed in France. Of special note in France is the ‘accompanied
sonata’ (Mondonville, Rameau) in which the violin or flute accompanies the
keyboard. The sonata for unaccompanied solo instrument is associated
particularly with Austrian and German composers (Biber, Bach, Telemann),
although Tartini may have intended some of his sonatas, published with a
bass part, for violin alone (Brainard), and the Swedish composer Roman left
about 20 multi-movement works of that type, most called assaggi. Some
programmatic or narrative sonatas are also associated with composers in
Austria or Germany (e.g. Biber’s Mystery Sonatas and Kuhnau’s Biblical
Sonatas), but Couperin’s ‘grande sonade en trio’ Le Parnasse, ou L’apothéose
de Corelli might also be mentioned.
18th-century Austro-German composers moved more and more towards the
multi-movement design already standard in Italy, and played a central role
in the mixing and merging of national styles that characterize the high
Baroque sonata. Sonatas by Vivaldi, Fasch, Zelenka, Quantz and Telemann
placed galant idioms (the ‘natural’ and immediately appealing melody of the
Adagio) side by side with more traditional sonata styles (the fugues, whose
value for Scheibe in the late 1730s lay chiefly in their contrast with the
more expressive movements featuring accompanied melodies). Especially
interesting are the new trios and quartets in which the basso continuo
participates as a ‘real’ part. Some, composed ‘auf Concertenart’, borrow
aspects of a typically Vivaldian concerto style; others borrow from the
operatic aria or recitative, French dance and overture. If J.S. Bach’s
sonatas (unaccompanied solos, and several works for one or two instruments
with obbligato harpsichord or basso continuo) are better known today than
are Telemann’s over 200 ensemble sonatas and solos, the situation was
reversed in the mid-18th century. Quantity aside, there are parallels
between the two composers: both juxtaposed and integrated national styles,
and experimented with formal design and scoring; neither abandoned the
traditional four movements for the newer three-movement fashion (as did
Graun, Fasch, Tartini and Somis). Telemann is often dismissed as
over-prolific, but his greater success in the 18th century may be
attributable not only to his skill at marketing (he personally printed much
of his instrumental music in didactic or encyclopedic collections), but to
his serious exploration of the new trio and quartet in the ‘mixed’ style
(combining various national styles) for which contemporaries praised him,
and to his avoidance of the most old-fashioned elements of sonata style.
Elsewhere in Europe, sonatas circulated widely in manuscript, as well as in
prints both imported and domestic; and musicians left home in search of a
better living, taking their music along. Handel was only one of the many
foreign musicians whose careers blossomed in London, where imitations of
Corelli and the traditional trio sonata long remained fashionable. Handel’s
contribution to the sonata, like that of Bach, represents but a small
portion of his total output; however, it does include more keyboard sonatas
(Bach preferred the keyboard suite), as well as traditional solos and trios
aimed equally at the large amateur market and concert stage. A focus on
Handel’s sonatas may have inhibited modern exploration of the many English
sonata composers of the time (Babell, Boyce, Arne).
Over the 150 years of sonata composition before 1750, several trends are
evident: the emphasis on counterpoint lessened; the texture became
increasingly treble-dominated; multi-voice and polychoral sonatas gave way
to duos and trios, which in turn yielded ground to solos and quartets; the
early multi-sectional design grew to four or more separate movements, and
then fell back to three or fewer; what distinction existed between church
and chamber sonatas evaporated; instruments were more and more precisely
specified and their parts became increasingly idiomatic; a focus on the
violin grew stronger, and then was tempered by an interest in sonatas for a
variety of other instruments; keyboard sonatas finally began to take their
place in the repertory. As the sonata gained popularity outside Italy, its
Italian and Austro-German elements were further enriched by a variety of
national approaches to instrumental music, from the English division (Henry
Butler) to the French emphasis on ornamental detail (Leclair). None of these
changes occurred overnight, but they are evident enough when one compares
sonatas from 1630 or 1700 with those from 1750. Moreover, by mid-century the
function and aesthetic stature of the sonata had changed significantly.
(iv) Socio-cultural context.
Brossard (1703) noted that, while there are many kinds of sonatas, ‘the
Italians reduce them to two types. The first is the sonata da Chiesa, that
is one proper for the Church, … The second type is the Sonata which they
call da Camera, fit for the Chamber. These are actually suites of several
small pieces suitable for dancing, and all in the same scale or key’. The
liturgical use of Baroque sonatas has been well documented (see Bonta,
1969): 17th-century ensemble canzonas and sonatas replaced the organ solos
formerly heard at Mass, and solo violin sonatas were customary at the
Elevation; from about 1690, concertos or orchestral performance of trio
sonatas might be heard instead. Moreover, 17th-century church musicians may
have adapted longer sonatas by performing isolated sections, a practice
likely to have encouraged composers to construct independent movements.
Early collections mixing vocal and instrumental music had no need of the
chiesa and camera labels; in sacred collections, sonatas and canzonas are
usually found (Riccio), in the secular ones, dances and variation sonatas
(Marini, 1620; Turini, 1621). Even purely instrumental collections were so
clearly orientated that their uses would have been obvious to the purchaser:
in Buonamente’s fifth and sixth books (1629 and 1636, cited above) both
content and scoring suggest strongly that the former is a secular, the
latter a sacred collection (Mangsen, 1990). Merula’s ‘per chiesa e camera’
(1637) was thus unusual both in its label and in mixing serious and lighter
instrumental music in one volume. Such mixed volumes, as well as those
dedicated to church or chamber, appeared throughout the century, usually
without labels indicating function. The editions of Corelli’s ‘church’
sonatas (opp.1 and 3) are entitled merely Sonate a tre, whereas most
editions of the chamber sonatas are actually labelled da camera. This in
itself suggests what can be documented by other means, that serious
instrumental music, even if conceived primarily for a liturgical context,
was regularly heard elsewhere, possibly somewhat transformed: at meetings of
the various academies, as domestic chamber music, in concert, and even in
the theatre (as overture or interval music). The occasions for which such
music was best suited (and where to store the parts) would have been obvious
to the musician of the time.
Until 1700, at least in Italy, a sonata was assumed to be serious, and
therefore suitable for church; da camera marked the special case. Brossard
implied as much when, after describing the sonata da chiesa, he noted that
‘these are what they [the Italians] properly call Sonatas’. Chamber sonatas
usually ‘begin with a prelude or little Sonata, serving as an introduction
to all the rest’. The long tradition of such sonata-suites in Germany, as
well as the growing use of binary movements in place of the more serious
fugues (generally associated with sacred music), may explain why Walther
(1732) included a separate entry for the church sonata (which merely gives
the German equivalent), but not for the chamber variety; chiesa was for him
the special case, camera the norm. Beyond title-pages and dictionaries, the
dedicatees and collectors of printed volumes sometimes yield information
about the music’s use: Telemann dedicated some of his printed volumes
individually or collectively to amateurs, but professional musicians are
also heavily represented on his subscription lists. Corelli’s church sonatas
were dedicated to secular patrons, his chamber collections to clerics,
perhaps contrary to expectations. But those expectations are probably too
narrow, since some of the most significant collectors of sonatas for the
chamber were members of the clergy (Franz Rost, Edward Finch).
(v) Performing practice and dissemination.
Although some Baroque sonatas may boast a continuous performing tradition,
nearly every aspect of their performance has changed since 1750, and even
migration across borders within the Baroque era was often attended by marked
differences in performance due to local practices. Thus performing practice
of Baroque sonatas is intimately connected to matters of dissemination.
20th-century instruments and playing techniques, as well as ideas about
pitch, tempo, ornamentation, continuo realization, dynamics and articulation
all differ significantly from their Baroque antecendents; even reading from
the composer’s autograph is no guarantee of a ‘correct’ performance, since
the interpretation of ‘standard’ notational signs will also have changed.
Only a few of these matters can be taken up here.
Many modern editors of Baroque sonatas suggest substituting one instrument
for another, a practice with some historical foundation, but not sufficient
to condone a completely ad libitum approach. While instruments were
specified more and more exactly between 1600 and 1750, many sources, some
tied directly to the composer, did give the performer a good deal of leeway.
Leclair, for instance, indicated that some of his violin sonatas could be
played on (and may even have been conceived for) the transverse flute, and
he even provided alternate versions of some individual movements. Telemann
offered several options for some of his ensemble sonatas, as in the viol and
cello parts for the Paris Quartets. Some of J.G. Graun’s trio sonatas exist
also as works for obbligato harpsichord and one treble soloist; and solo
violin sonatas in score were no doubt played as keyboard solos. Italian
prints from Rossi and Castello to Vivaldi frequently mention alternative
instruments (violin or cornett, theorbo or violone) more or less equally
suited to play a part. Even if no instruments were specified, however, it is
unlikely that composers were indifferent to questions of instrumentation, or
that no conventions operated among those who played such pieces.
Ornamentation was a concern even in the 18th century: an important
selling-point for Roger’s edition of Corelli’s solo sonatas (1710) seems to
have been the inclusion of the ornaments ‘as he played them’. Baroque
soloists ornamented sonatas according to their ability and to such criteria
as genre, national style, context and tempo. Some composers (Handel, Babell,
Telemann) supplied ornamented versions of simpler lines, using smaller note
heads, or additional staves, probably intended and still helpful as models.
Some used particular phrases (affetti, ad libitum) or signs to encourage
departures from the notated pitches. Ornamentation extended to improvisation
in sections of sonatas by Colista, Guerrieri and others, who provided only
the bass part over which a soloist was to invent a melodic line. Quantz, who
included an ornamented Adagio in his flute tutor (1752), warned readers that
both tempo and ornamentation should be adapted to suit the context.
Mattheson cautioned against performing (and ornamenting) French pieces in
the Italian style and vice versa; and Burney noted that (in his day) Corelli
’s sonatas were ornamented more lavishly on secular occasions, and given a
more restrained performance in church (General History, ii). The increasing
density of the ornamentation supplied for Corelli’s solo sonatas in printed
and manuscript sources offers one demonstration of the ways in which
successive generations of performers embellished the same piece, perhaps
slowing the tempo in the process.
When a sonata moves across significant boundaries of time and place, more
extensive transformation may be expected. Thus, some English sources of
Italian sonatas not only misattribute individual works, but alter the
musical content, creating chamber sonatas from dances grouped loosely by
key, or merging continuo and melodic bass parts. Spanish guitar
transcriptions of Corelli’s sonatas simply delete sections whose realization
on the guitar was impractical; sonatas in the Rost manuscript (F-Pn Rés.Vm7
653; see Rost, franz) omit inner parts to produce trios from quintets.
Availability of printed and manuscript copies of sonatas was ensured as
agents in northern Europe imported Italian prints, visitors to the Continent
returned to England with much sought-after volumes, and sonata prints from
northern presses began to outnumber those from Italy. Sonatas remained
throughout the period more likely to achieve publication than operas or
other large-scale music (among important publication centres were Paris,
London, Hamburg and Amsterdam), but manuscript dissemination was significant
as well, especially outside Italy. Manuscript copies, to the degree that
they were aimed at a smaller circle of players, yield information about
local preferences in repertory and performing practice, in contrast to the
homogenizing influence exerted by publication.
Rousseau’s quotation of Fontenelle’s remark ‘Sonate, que me veux tu?’
(Dictionnaire, 1768) suggests that, at the end of the Baroque era, sonatas
were still less highly regarded than was texted music, at least in France.
But by 1739 the ties of abstract instrumental music to narrowly defined
social function had already weakened sufficiently for Mattheson to offer a
new view of the sonata
  *whose aim is principally towards complaisance or kindness, since a
certain Complaisance must predominate in sonatas, which is accommodating to
everyone, and which serves each listener. A melancholy person will find
something pitiful and compassionate, a senuous person something pretty, an
angry person something violent, and so on, in different varieties of
sonatas. (Der vollkommene Capellmeister, trans. Harriss, 466)*
This picture of the sonata as personal and domestic, intended more for the
individual player and a few listeners than for public ceremony or concert
stage, is one associated more with the Classical period than with the
Baroque. In fact Mattheson’s response to the modern sonatas of the 1730s,
combined with the long shadow cast by Corelli, suggest a good deal of
continuity in the 18th-century approach to the genre.
2. Classical.
Because of the impossibility of establishing clear stylistic divisions
between ‘Baroque’ and ‘Classical’ sonatas in the 18th century, and between
‘Classical’ and ‘Romantic’ sonatas in the 19th century, the period covered
in this section extends from about 1735 to about 1820, leading to some
overlap between the three style periods.
(i) Contemporary definitions.
Numerous definitions of the sonata, in generic, aesthetic and formal terms,
were attempted during the Classical period. Earlier definitions such as
Rousseau’s (Dictionnaire de musique, 1768) had described the sonata as
‘consisting of three or four movements in contrasting characters … to
instruments roughly what the cantata is to voices’, mentioning also the
respective roles of the soloist and accompaniment, as discussed above (§I,
1). Such definitions perpetuated the older, Baroque, concept of the sonatas
da camera and da chiesa, although in Rousseau’s article there is the hint of
an emerging awareness of the solo sonata as something distinct from the trio
sonata.
J.A.P. Schulz, writing in 1775, defined the sonata as follows:
  An instrumental piece [comprising] two, three or four successive movements
in contrasting characters … in no form of instrumental music is there a
better opportunity than in the sonata to depict feelings without words …
[except for symphonies, concertos and dances] there remains only the form of
the sonata, which assumes all characters and all expressions … . For
instrumentalists, sonatas are the most usual and useful exercises, besides
which, there are many examples, both easy and difficult for all kinds of
instruments … . Since they require only one performer to a part, they can be
played in even the smallest musical gatherings.
Schulz’s article, originally printed in volume ii of Sulzer’s Allgemeine
Theorie der schönen Künste, was highly influential, being the basis of later
definitions by Schubart (Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst, written
1784–5; Vienna, 1806/R) and Koch (Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition,
iii, Leipzig, 1793, and Musikalisches Lexikon, Frankfurt, 1802/R).
Some writers sought literary analogies for the sonata. D.G. Türk’s
Clavierschule (Leipzig, 1789) made a comparison between the sonata and the
ode, specifically in so far as both depend for their effect upon the
regulation of structure by adherence to a well-defined sequence of ideas. In
this, Türk was perhaps influenced by Forkel’s likening of sonata form to the
rules of oratory, expressed in the Musikalischer Almanach für Deutschland
(Leipzig, 1784):
  one of the foremost principles of musical rhetoric and aesthetics is the
careful ordering of musical figures and the progression of the ideas to be
expressed through them, so that these ideas are coherently set forth as in
an oration … according to logical principles … still preserved by skilled
orators – that is, exordium, propositio, refutatio, confirmatio, etc.
Forkel’s comments impinge specifically upon first-movement Sonata form, a
tacit acknowledgment that this movement was considered the most important
within a sonata in the later 18th century. Definitions of sonata form by
Koch, Portmann, Kollmann, Galeazzi and others differ in details and in
terminology, but agree in the primacy accorded to tonal rather than thematic
contrast. (Thematic contrast, often of a dramatic nature, was to gain ground
in the sonata as developed by Beethoven, for example in the first movements
of his opp.54 and 109.)
Clearly, the sonata signified many different things to 18th-century writers,
varying according to the particular standpoint taken – formal, aesthetic or
even national. In summary, a definition of the sonata genre as understood
and practised in the Classical period might be a work in three (or, less
commonly, four) movements, most often for piano solo or else for duo (violin
and piano being numerically the most significant type), whose first movement
was almost invariably cast in sonata form, perhaps preceded by a slow
introduction (Beethoven, opp.13, 27 no.1 and 81a; Clementi, op.32 no.2),
followed by a contrasting slow middle movement in a related key (often on
the flat side of the ‘home’ tonic), episodic form and cantabile idiom, and a
finale (most frequently a rondo – ‘too frequently’, according to Charles
Burney – or sonata-rondo; see Rondo) that rounded off the work in a lighter
vein. Minuet (or scherzo) and trio movements are sometimes found sandwiched
between the slow movement and finale (as in many of Beethoven’s sonatas up
to op.31). Frequently, mid-18th-century sonatas had featured a minuet as
finale (Wagenseil, Štěpán, Haydn). In general, use of dance metres such as
the allemande steadily declined in the Classical sonata, being mostly
restricted to brief ‘topical’ allusions (to the minuet, for instance, at the
opening of Mozart’s k570), although at times Beethoven openly specifies a
dance topic (op.54, first movement).
Within such generalized schemes were myriad possible variations, as may be
demonstrated by contrasting Haydn’s and Mozart’s attitudes to the sequence
and number of movements in their sonatas. From his earliest efforts Mozart’s
was a three-movement plan, most frequently fast–slow–fast, a procedure Koch
regarded as standard in the final volume of his Versuch (1793). Such a
succession was never so sacred to Haydn, however: the fifth of the
‘Esterházy’ sonatas, hXVI:25, is in two movements; hXVI:30 (1776) has no
clearly separated slow movement, merely a link between the Allegro and the
concluding Minuet. Of continuing significance throughout Haydn’s keyboard
sonatas is the presence of the minuet, found in only two of Mozart’s sonatas
(k282/189g and k331/300i). Two-movement sonatas (for instance, Haydn,
hXVI:40–42, hXVI:52; Beethoven, opp.54, 78, 90, 111) were by no means
uncommon. Neither were first movements in sonata form the infallible rule.
In Haydn’s hXVI:40–42 (1784) only hXVI:41 conforms to that norm; hXVI:49
(1789–90) begins with a set of double variations, alternating major and
minor modes, and marked ‘Andante con espressione’; Mozart’s k331/300i in A
and Beethoven’s op.26 likewise begin with a set of variations; Rutini’s op.7
sonatas all begin with preludes, allowing the player to feel his or her way
into the Affekt of the piece (or perhaps to become familiar with the
instrument) before launching into the main business. Sonata form itself, as
practised by pre-Classical and Classical sonata composers, was capable of
infinite variety. All of Mozart’s first-movement expositions in the early
set k279–83/189d–h and k284/205b (1775) are richly polythematic
(particularly in the second-subject group), whereas Haydn’s roughly
contemporary hXVI:21 and 26 are, by contrast, ‘monothematic’ in the sense
that the first and second subjects begin almost identically, although
additional melodic material is always introduced during the course of
second-subject groups (hXVI:25 is an exception, containing at least nine
distinct themes).
Sonatas were typically issued in printed sets of two, three or six works
(e.g. Haydn’s hXVI:21–6 and 35–9 and 20; Mozart’s k301–6, 309–11 and 330–32;
Beethoven’s opp.2, 10, 12, 27 and 102; and many of Clementi’s). As the
Classical period wore on, however, the scale was expanding such that a
single sonata could justify an opus number of its own, such as Mozart’s k533
or Beethoven’s opp.7, 22, 57, 96 and 106. Frequently dedicated to a
prominent member of the aristocracy, the published sonata, whether singly or
in a group, could secure widespread attention for the composer, as Leopold
Mozart no doubt realized when arranging for some of his son’s early sonatas
to be printed.
(ii) Instrumental forces.
Sonatas for solo keyboard were to become the most significant type during
the Classical period, although, in numerical terms, the sonata ‘with violin
accompaniment’ (see below) was predominant. In 1821 Castil-Blaze noted that
‘the sonata suits the piano best of all, on which one can play three or four
distinct voices at the same time … It is also on this instrument that it has
gone furthest in its astonishing progress’ (NewmanSCE, 3/1983, p.94).
Sonatas were also composed for violin (obbligato), cello (whose role as
continuo bass was liberated by Boccherini and extended by Beethoven), flute
(Séjan), clarinet (Vanhal), guitar (Sor), baryton (Haydn), horn (Beethoven)
and organ (C.P.E. Bach). Duet sonatas were popular for domestic amusement,
principally for four hands at one piano, such as those of J.C. Bach, Mozart
and Seydelmann; other pairings included two violins (Pleyel), violin and
viola (M. Haydn; Mozart) and bassoon and cello (Mozart). It is worth
remarking also that sonatas originally conceived for one medium were
transferable to others: Beethoven’s E major Sonata op.14 no.1 exists in a
version in F for string quartet (Schwager, SM, xvi, 1987, pp.157–69).
The earliest extant collection of sonatas for piano (i.e. fortepiano) solo
is Giustini's 12 Sonate da cimbalo di piano e forte detto volgarmente di
martelletti (1732), although early examples of the instrument had been
developed by Bartolomeo Cristofori by 1709. From the 1760s sonatas for
keyboard began to appear in increasing number, among them examples published
by Eckard in Paris in 1763 and 1764. The intended instrument is frequently
ambiguous in mid-century sonatas. Often the designation is simply ‘clavier’,
although internal evidence sometimes betrays the need for a touch-sensitive
instrument: while the fortepiano is not specified on the title-page of J.C.
Bach’s op.5, certain effects contained in that set are impossible to realize
satisfactorily on the harpsichord (but performance on the clavichord remains
a possibility). During the 1770s the alternative ‘cembalo o pianoforte’ was
commonplace on title-pages; by the end of the century ‘clavecin’, ‘clavier’
and ‘cembalo’ are only rarely encountered.
During much of the Classical period the genre known as ‘accompanied sonata’
was very much in vogue. Early forerunners include J.S. Bach’s sonatas
bwv1014–19, for violin with written-out keyboard parts (rather than realized
figured basses), and Mondonville’s Pièces de clavecin en sonates avec
accompagnement de violon, op.3 (1734), the latter almost exclusively in
three movements but featuring fugal allegros and binary dance structures
typical of the Baroque. The accompanied sonata was specially prevalent in
France. In addition to Mondonville’s op.3 such sets as Rameau’s Pièces de
clavecin en concerts avec un violon ou une flute et une viole ou un 2e
violon were published (1741), soon followed by Guillemain’s Pièces de
clavecin en sonates avec accompagnement de violon (1745), which includes in
its preface the following remark:
  *my first thought had been to compose these works for keyboard alone,
without any accompaniment … but, in order to satisfy the present taste, I
felt unable to dispense with [the violin] part, which must be performed very
softly so that the keyboard part may be easily heard. If desired, these
sonatas may be played either with or without the [violin] accompaniment.*
This vogue reached its height in Paris during the 1760s and 70s in the
published sonatas of Schobert, Honauer, H.F. Raupach, J.F. Edelmann and
Hüllmandel. Mozart was acquainted with the work of the first three
(arranging their music in the pasticcio keyboard concertos k37, 39, 40 and
41) and his own early efforts in the genre (k6, 7, 8 and 9) may have been
influenced by his discovery of Schobert and his Parisian contemporaries
while touring in 1763–4. Schobert’s work was especially popular, it seems: a
dozen sets of sonatas were published in Paris before his death in 1767. His
Six sonates pour le clavecin … oeuvre XIV … les parties d’accompagnements
sonts [sic] ad libitum, originally printed in Paris, appeared again in
Amsterdam, published by Hummel, as Six sonates pour le clavecin, avec
accompagnement d’un violon … oeuvre quatrième. In this latter form they were
advertised in the 1770 fifth supplement to Breitkopf’s thematic catalogue
(‘Trii di Schobert a Cemb[alo] e Viol op.IV Amsterd[am]’). In all such works
the keyboard part was almost entirely self-sufficient, the accompanimental
role of the violin being restricted to thematic doubling in 3rds and 6ths,
or the provision of anodyne background figuration derived from ‘Alberti bass
’ patterns transferred to the middle of the texture, or else harmonic
‘filling’ in the form of long, held notes, similar in function to those
often assigned, orchestrally, to the natural horn. This practice may have
had something to do with the gradual disappearance of the cello as a
supporting continuo instrument from the mid-century, combined with weakness
of tone in early fortepianos. Occasionally, as in some of Hüllmandel’s op.6
sonatas or Clementi’s op.27 (1791), the violin part acquired greater
individuality, even parity with the keyboard. Solo keyboard sonatas (for
example, Haydn’s hXVI:37 in D or Mozart’s k570 in B) were sometimes
reissued, without the authority of the composer, as sonatas ‘with
accompaniment for a violin’, particularly in England (with violin parts
devised by Burney), where the fortepiano rather than the originally
non-committal ‘clavecin’ is often specified.
The violin became an equal partner in the ensemble in Mozart’s duo sonatas
from at least the late 1770s. k454 in B, published in 1784 alongside two
solo sonatas, k333/315c and k284/205b, is one such example, opening with an
affective slow introduction. The subsequent Allegro contains many moments of
dialogue between the violin and the piano’s right hand, a texture that was
to become so important a trait in the later Classical duo sonata, a
memorable illustration being the opening of Beethoven’s Spring Sonata in F
op.24. Parity between the instruments is taken a step further in Beethoven’s
op.30 set: in the G major Sonata op.30 no.1 the slow movement’s main theme
is shared phrase for phrase between the piano and violin towards the end of
the movement. Nevertheless, the ‘accompanimental’ perception of the violin
in such sonatas persisted into the early 19th century, long after it had
attained equal status with the piano: Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata op.47
(1802–3) bears the designation ‘per il pian-forte ed un violino obligato’ on
its title-page.
(iii) Functions.
Classical sonatas were known by a variety of generic titles. In England the
term ‘lesson’ was commonplace (Samuel Arnold, op.7); elsewhere ‘solo’ in
Italy (Giardini, op.16), ‘pièces de clavecin’ in France (Mondonville, op.3),
‘divertimento’ in Austria (Wagenseil, op.1, several of Haydn’s early sets)
were common. The diminutive ‘sonatina’ was particularly associated with
keyboard pedagogy and is most obviously linked with the name of Clementi
(specifically the op.36 Sonatinas of 1797).
An awareness of the pedagogical connection is fundamental to a proper
understanding of the Classical sonata. In 1789 Türk’s Clavierschule included
a list of keyboard composers arranged according to the difficulty of their
sonatas. Haydn recalled at the end of his life that he had once earned his
living giving keyboard lessons, and his early sonatas arose for use in such
a setting. Mozart’s letters from Mannheim in late 1777 indicate that the C
major Sonata k309/284b was composed for Rosa Cannabich, whom he was teaching
at the time. Its slow movement (Andante) calls for the utmost sensitivity to
dynamic contrast, and a letter to his father of 14 November is valuable in
linking the movement with specific pedagogic issues:
  The Andante will give us the most trouble, for it is full of expression
and must be played accurately and with the exact shades of forte and piano,
precisely as they are marked. [Rosa] is smart and learns very easily. Her
right hand is very good, but her left, unfortunately, is completely ruined …
I have told her too that if I were her regular teacher, I would lock up all
her music, cover the keys with a handkerchief and make her practise, first
with the right hand and then with the left, nothing but passages, trills,
mordents and so forth, very slowly at first, until each hand should be
thoroughly trained.
Wagenseil, who was tutor to the imperial archduchesses in Vienna under Maria
Theresa, probably designed his solo sonata sets specifically for the
instruction of his royal pupils; in general, these are straightforward,
technically undemanding pieces. The op.5 sonatas of J.C. Bach (1766) were
certainly composed with a pedagogical end in view (the title-page trumpets
the fact that Bach was ‘Music Master to Her Majesty and the Royal Family’),
and it is instructive to approach a work such as the third sonata in the set
from this perspective, the successive variations of its finale clearly being
intended primarily for the demonstration, and eventual mastery, of different
technical problems at the keyboard.
The ‘English’ Bach’s elder brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel, must be regarded
as one of the most significant composers of ‘pedagogic’ sonatas (nearly all
in three movements). He issued a number of sets, including the ‘Prussian’
(1742), ‘Württemberg’ (1744), six sets ‘für Kenner und Liebhaber’ (1779–87),
and two sets of sonatas ‘mit veränderten Reprisen’ (1760, 1761) whose
primary purpose was that of teaching material. Bach’s reputation covered
most of Europe, and it has been suggested that the taste of his ‘public’
played a significant role in the design of his later sets (G. Wagner, Mf,
xli, 1988, pp.331–48). His sonatas were frequently included in the keyboard
anthology publications (Oeuvres mêlées) of Johann Ulrich Haffner during the
1750s and 60s. Haffner’s anthologies (12 volumes, each containing 6 sonatas)
offered a wide selection of works by composers from every corner of musical
Europe, and were hugely important in the formation of mid-18th-century
‘galant’ taste. Among the composers represented are, besides C.P.E. Bach
(particularly works in the empfindsamer Stil replete with impassioned
melodic and rhythmic gestures, recitativo declamation and recherché
harmonies), Scheibe, Schobert, Benda, Eberlin, Adlgasser, Leopold Mozart
(three of whose solo sonatas were published in this collection) and less
well-known men such as Bernhard Hupfeld, Rachmann, J.F. Kleinknecht and Jan
Zach. Haffner drew attention to each composer’s court appointment at the
head of each sonata, such as the ‘Sonata Vta Composta dal Signor Henrico
Filippo Johnsen, Organista della Corte, Direttore di Musica, ed Organista
alla Chiesa di Santa Chiara, a Stoccolma’, found in volume iii of Oeuvres
mêlées. Although Haffner was not the only publisher to issue such keyboard
anthologies (see NewmanSCE, 3/1983, chap.4) he dominated the market that was
opening up for sonatas that varied in their technical demands from the easy
to the moderately challenging. Anyone owning a complete set of all 12
volumes about 1770 would have had access to a richly varied and
comprehensive record of the early Classical sonata.
For the most part, the ‘domestic’ and ‘pedagogic’ market for Classical
sonatas was female (C.P.E. Bach issued a set of sonatas specifically ‘à l’
usage des dames’ in 1770). Talented female keyboard players were relatively
plentiful in the second half of the 18th century; they included Katharina
and Marianna Auenbrugger, to whom Haydn dedicated his six sonatas hXVI:35–9
and 20 in 1780. Indeed, the social etiquette of the age virtually dictated a
certain degree of keyboard proficiency for ladies: among aristocratic
families, for instance, ability in that direction could be important in
attracting an acceptable husband. During the 1780s several of Mozart’s
Viennese pupils were ladies from the higher echelons of society (Countess
Thun, Countess Rumbecke). Somewhat lower down the scale were Theresia von
Trattner (wife of the prominent bookseller and publisher, and dedicatee of
the Fantasia and Sonata in C minor k475 and 457, published by Artaria in
1785), Barbara von Ployer and Josepha Barbara von Auernhammer; the last two
carved out successful careers as performers. Therese Jansen (later Mrs
Bartolozzi), a pupil of Clementi, was yet another, to whom Haydn dedicated
his famous E sonata hXVI:52 (and perhaps also hXVI:50 and 51) in 1794.
Besides its function as teaching material, the Classical sonata found a
place within the aristocratic salon, a forum that became increasingly
popular during the second half of the 18th century, especially in France and
Austria. Such salons, at which only the upper classes were normally present,
were private affairs usually given in the homes of counts and countesses,
less frequently in the homes of court officials such as L’Augier, the
Viennese court physician, one of whose meetings was attended by Charles
Burney in 1772. It is only ocasionally possible to recover any programme
details of such private gatherings, such as that at Hohen-Altheim, the
country residence of Prince Kraft Ernst von Oettingen-Wallerstein
(1748–1802), on 26 October 1777, when Mozart performed his sonatas in B
k281/189f and D k284/205b. The most famous of Viennese salons was that of
Countess Wilhelmine Thun, a staunch patron of Mozart’s during his early
years in the capital, who lent her fortepiano for the famous contest with
Clementi before Emperor Joseph II on 24 December 1781. Clementi later noted
that on this occasion he himself had played his Sonata in B op.24 no.2.
Mozart's record of the meeting describes Clementi in less than flattering
terms, noting that he was a mere technician, whose ‘star passages’ were 3rds
and 6ths. The association of Clementi’s sonatas with empty technical
brilliance (as in the op.2 set of 1779, for instance) highlights a weakness
that Clementi himself freely acknowledged, and it is noteworthy that
Rochlitz, reviewing Clementi’s sonatas opp.33 and 37 in the Allgemeine
musikalische Zeitung in 1798–9, praised Clementi’s avoidance of exactly such
passages, something that was evidently regarded as a fingerprint of his
earlier style. According to Schindler, Beethoven owned almost all of
Clementi’s works (he had little by Mozart and nothing by Haydn), which he
valued for their ‘lovely, pleasing, fresh melodies [as well as] the
well-constructed fluent forms’.
Throughout much of the Classical period the solo sonata remained a domestic
genre. Only towards the end of the 18th century and in the early 19th did it
become a concert piece, typically issued with the title ‘Grande Sonate’, and
that trend was inextricably linked with the rise at the time of such
virtuoso performers as Beethoven, Hummel and Dussek. Mozart scarcely ever
played his own sonatas in public performances, preferring the concerto and
variation genres as vehicles for exhibiting his keyboard prowess. The rise
of the ‘concert’ sonata is to some degree linked with increasing length and
advancing technical difficulty. Beethoven’s sonatas, which cover virtually
the whole of his career, tread a steady path away from the kind of piece
that could have been played by talented amateurs. Works such as the
Waldstein, ‘Appassionata’ and Hammerklavier sonatas were only ever
attainable by professional players, and also demanded a new kind of
listener, familiar with the intellectual demands of the other ‘public’
genres of symphony and concerto and featuring juxapositions of contrasting
themes and textures that demanded the listener’s active, rather than
passive, attention. In those respects, Beethoven’s middle- and late-period
sonatas (whether for solo piano or duo, such as the cello sonatas op.102) go
far beyond anything that had formerly been the preserve of the aristocratic
salon. Also notable in the later concert sonata is a tendency towards more
expansive, at times dramatic gestures in such turbulent movements as the
first movement of Beethoven’s sonatas op.31 no.2 (sometimes associated with
Shakespeare’s Tempest: see Albrecht, 1988) and op.57. A parallel strand is
the studied introspection of op.101 or the finale of op.111, an idiom that
was to influence Schubert (in the slow movement of the late B Sonata d960,
for example).
(iv) Styles.
During the mid-18th century the sonata was an important laboratory for
stylistic change, from the late Baroque to the galant. The characteristics
of the former may be summarized as including a continuously spun-out melody,
featuring sequential writing and general avoidance of contrasting melodies,
a tendency towards polyphony (whether ‘real’ or ‘implied’, as in some of
J.S. Bach’s violin sonatas), and a relatively uniform harmonic rhythm. Some
of these elements begin to break down in the sonatas of, for example,
Domenico Scarlatti (especially as regards melodic and textural contrast).
Scarlatti’s single-movement sonatas are closely related in outline to the
familiar binary structure of the Baroque dance suite and are notable for a
steady movement away from the patterned uniformity of Baroque rhetoric
towards the more dynamic interplay of galant-style phrase articulation.
The galant idiom, which reached its peak during the 1750s and 60s, favoured
a wholly different approach towards melody, which proceeded in short phrases
of two or four bars, arranged in symmetrical patterns and closing with
balancing imperfect and perfect (half and full) cadences along with a use of
the 6-4 chord so extensive as to be almost a cliché. Characteristic of
galant melody was its tuneful, lyrical quality, dotted rhythms (sometimes
inverted as the ‘Scotch snap’), interruption of the prevailing flow by
triplet quavers, affective use of rests and long appoggiaturas, contrast of
dynamic and articulation. Textural characteristics include a marked absence
of polyphony and especially of fugal imitation, tending instead towards a
simplicity and transparency of presentation, which is generally confined to
two strands, one for each hand. Variety of harmonic rhythm (a reaction
against ‘turgid’ and ‘artificial’ late Baroque practice as identified by
Scheibe in his critique of J.S. Bach’s music) was a fingerprint of the
galant style, made all the more prominent by recourse to such accompaniment
patterns as the Alberti bass. All in all, the emerging galant idiom, found
in the work of J.C. Bach, Boccherini, Galuppi, Rutini, Sammartini and
Schobert, and in early Haydn and early Mozart, captured a deliberately
cultivated superficiality of utterance.
The ‘high’ Classical style has been described by William Newman as ‘the peak
at which the ideal and most purposeful co-ordination of Classic style traits
obtained’ (NewmanSCE, 3/1983, p.124). Among its features are a clearer sense
of individuality and originality in the handling of the elements of the
Classical language than in the galant idiom. This expresses itself most
obviously in thematic terms – a striking opening such as that of Haydn’s
hXVI:52 or Mozart’s k457 – although such opening gambits as the opposition
of a forte unison statement (often triadic) and a piano chordal answer
(Mozart’s k309/284b and k576, for instance) is not infrequent. Other
fingerprints of the high Classical style include the reintegration of
counterpoint with periodic phrasing (Haydn, hXVI:47; Mozart, k533, k570);
audacious form schemes (as in Mozart’s k311/284c, whose exposition themes
are reversed in the recapitulation); wide-ranging tonal schemes, leading to
expansion of movement length (Haydn, hXVI:50 in C, hXVI:52; Mozart, k570;
Beethoven, op.2 no.3); use of harmonic colour (especially chromaticism) for
effect (Haydn, hXVI:20 in C minor, hXVI:52 in E; Mozart, k333/315c;
Beethoven, op.27 no.2 – one of a pair of sonatas entitled ‘quasi una
fantasia’, partly on the grounds that the movements are designed as
‘sections’ which follow on in sequence with scarcely any break, but partly
also because of recourse to keyboard textures and idioms more closely
associated with the fantasia genre than with a sonata) and use of irregular
phrase-lengths (Haydn, hXVI:45 in E; Mozart, k309/284b opening themes).
Texturally, the high Classical sonata typically returns to a more fully
polyphonic norm in which counterpoint plays an increasingly significant
thematic role (Haydn, hXVI:52; Clementi, op.40 no.1, op.50 no.1; Beethoven,
op.2 no.2, op.54); elsewhere the texture is enlivened by more confident use
of a wider keyboard range than was normal in the earlier galant style,
sometimes stressing textural variety so prominently as to make it a defining
force within the movement structure (Haydn, hXVI:49; Mozart, k457;
Beethoven, op.10 no.3, op.13).
At the end of the Classical period the sonata, as hinted earlier, launched
itself out of the drawing-room and on to the concert platform. The
middle-period sonatas of Clementi and, especially, Beethoven secured the
place of the sonata as a public statement in which the composer as
individual genius chose to express some of his innermost thoughts. From the
early 19th century the sonata trod the parallel paths of grand virtuosity
and inward contemplation. Occasionally, as in Beethoven’s op.106 (the
Hammerklavier), both types meet on a grand scale, leading to the sublime
juxtaposition of extreme sound worlds. Both Clementi and Beethoven tend in
their sonatas to devote considerable effort to the working out of motifs.
(That much is well-known in Beethoven’s case from examination of his
sketches.) Clementi’s op.50 set (published in 1821), including the
programmatic ‘Didone abbandonata’ (no.3 in G minor), is notable for its
concentration of motivic usage, frequently over protracted time-spans, as
also for complexity of tonal and phrase-structure. A tendency towards the
incorporation of quasi-orchestral sonorities at the keyboard is evident in
Beethoven’s later sonatas (opp.81a, 109, 111), although it is only one trait
among several that emerge at this stage: others include a renewed interest
in fugue (opp.101, 110, 111) and variation chains (opp.109, 111), along with
idiosyncratic keyboard patterns such as high-pitched trills as a tonally
stabilizing background to culminating thematic statements (as in the finales
of opp.109 and 111). At this late stage in the Classical sonata's evolution
the ‘centre of gravity’ no longer necessarily resides in the first movement,
as was generally the case in Haydn’s and Mozart’s sonatas. This trend is
especially notable in Beethoven’s work. From the earliest set, op.2, the
slow movements clearly function as highly expressive individual statements,
rather than mere contrast to the quicker outer movements (those of op.10
no.3 and op.57 are particularly outstanding examples). In Beethoven’s later
sonatas the work becomes a journey, no single movement making sense outside
the whole context (op.90, for instance, in two movements of contrasting
‘dark’ and ‘light’ character; also opp.106, 109 and 110). In opp.109 and 111
the variation finales (containing, perhaps, a wider range of expression than
any previous sonata-form first movement in the Classical sonata literature)
truly become the emotional heart of their respective works.
3. 19th century, after Beethoven.
(i) Historical overview.
Beethoven's sonatas wielded enormous influence on compositional, pedagogical
and performing practices throughout the 19th century. His towering
achievements in the solo and duo sonata, as well as the string quartet and
the symphony, set a standard that few composers could hope to meet. Sonatas
in imitation of Beethoven's nevertheless abound, along with analytical and
pedagogical publications on Beethoven's own sonatas. His sonatas featured
prominently in the piano recitals that developed as a genre from the late
1830s, with a canon of favourites established early on (although
occasionally subject to the virtuoso ‘embellishments’ that were popular
before 1850). By 1861, pianists were performing Beethoven sonatas in
complete cycles, a practice that of course survives to this day.
Austria and Germany remained especially important centres of sonata
production in the wake of Beethoven, although French and British composers
also produced large numbers. Beethoven's influence encouraged a new
appreciation of the sonata as one of the most ‘distinguished’ forms
(Schumann); it thus became a staple of piano solo and ensemble recitals
alike, its increasing significance reflecting the collective predilections
of performers, publishers, students and amateur groups, as well as their
often sophisticated audiences. In The Sonata since Beethoven (1969, 3/1983),
William S. Newman claimed that the ‘main cornerstones’ of the Romantic
sonata were Schubert, Schumann, Chopin and Brahms, the last of these being
‘the most important and central contributor to the sonata since Beethoven’.
All told, he identified some 625 European and American composers who
produced sonatas, in three overlapping phases: 1800–50 (during which Dussek,
Weber, Schubert and Mendelssohn were the key practitioners); 1840–85, which
started with an alleged decline in the quality and quantity of sonata
production, followed after a decade by a revival of interest (this period
was dominated by Schumann, Chopin, Liszt and Brahms); and finally about
1875–1914 (when the later Brahms, Reger, Franck, Fauré, Saint-Saëns, d'Indy,
Grieg, Medtner, Rachmaninoff and MacDowell were pre-eminent).
While Newman regarded 19th-century sonatas as a ‘conservative facet of
Romantic music history’, Charles Rosen (1980) asserted that compositional
styles after 1830 were not ‘especially suitable’ for dealing with sonata
form, which is ‘largely irrelevant to the history of 19th- and 20th-century
styles’, neither generating nor being altered by them. (Richard Strauss for
one complained in 1888 of ‘a gradually ever increasing contradiction between
the musical-poetic content that I want to convey [and] the ternary sonata
form that has come down to us from the classical composers’, a form in his
opinion no longer capable of conveying ‘the highest, most glorious content’
found in Beethoven's sonatas.) Conversely, Anatole Leikin (1986) identified
a dissolution of normative sonata structure in the music of Schubert,
Schumann and Chopin, among others, where the elements of the sonata
archetype blend together, the borders between them blurring or disappearing
altogether partly because of the influence of other formal paradigms.
(ii) Genre versus form.
The sonata as genre must be distinguished from the sonata as form. Arguably,
any work bearing the title ‘sonata’ belongs to the sonata genre, as indeed
did such disparate works as the symphony, fantasy and concerto, according to
early 19th-century parlance. As generic categories hardened, however,
composers and writers alike employed more precise terminology, while
descriptive labels such as ‘brillante’, ‘dramatique’ and even ‘érotique’
were appended to the titles of published sonatas by composers or (more
often) publishers, either to denote character or simply to enhance appeal.
Sonata-derived procedures and formal properties influenced a vast number of
pieces not explicitly designated ‘sonatas’ – for instance, Chopin's four
ballades, which demonstrate a unique application and understanding of the
‘sonata principle’ as inherited from 18th-century masters. The essence of
such a sonata principle was a (usually harmonic) opposition or polarity set
up early in a work, which, after a heightening of resultant tensions,
experienced eventual resolution and reconciliation in the last third or so
of the piece, principally through tonal adjustments. Key 19th-century
specimens, as well as 18th-century sonatas, depend on that fundamental
dialectic, notwithstanding the increasingly schematic formulae developed by
theorists from the 1790s onwards and applied by composers with growing
frequency, often at the expense of the music's life.
Francesco Galeazzi (1796) was one of the first to adumbrate a standard
‘sonata form’ (not referred to as such, however; see Churgin, 1968), while
Reicha's ‘grande coupe binaire’ (Traité de haute composition musicale,
1824–6) anticipates many of the features in the most important 19th-century
definition of sonata form, that proposed in Czerny's School of Practical
Composition op.600 (published in German in 1849 and in English translation
in 1848, several years after the third volume of A.B. Marx's seminal
treatise Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, which explicitly
addresses ‘Sonatenform’). Outlining the basic requirements of a sonata form,
Czerny advanced a prescriptive model based less on harmonic relationships
than on thematic ones, and although many of the terms in current usage (e.g.
‘exposition’, ‘recapitulation’ and even ‘sonata form’ itself) did not
feature in the English translation of Czerny's op.600, its influence on
subsequent theoretical thought and actual compositional practice can hardly
be overstated. (According to Rosen, sonata form was fixed once and for all
after Czerny: even Brahms ‘could not change the form as Haydn or C.P.E. Bach
had’.)
It is fascinating to trace the process by which textbook sonata form came to
challenge or replace the supple ‘sonata principle’ in the hands of
composers. Although contemporary dictionaries and other publications paid
little heed to sonata design (George Macfarren's On the Structure of a
Sonata, 1871, is a rare exception), there was (in Newman's words) an
‘increasing recognition and description of an explicit “sonata form” by
theorists and other writers’ which ‘had the levelling effect, at least among
the weaker, less imaginative composers, of rigidifying the once fluid form
and making it into a stereotype’. One of the great paradoxes of music
history is that this new model dominated the vast and highly
conventionalized output of most mid- to late 19th-century sonata composers,
while the older, even atavistic ‘sonata principle’ remained potent in the
music of their (relatively few) progressive counterparts.
(iii) Compositional practice.
This domination of the conventional caused despairing critics to predict the
sonata's demise. Schumann for one noted in 1839 that most sonatas by younger
composers were little more than a ‘study in form … hardly born out of a
strong inner compulsion … [It] seems that the form has run its course’.
Typical sonatas reveal a slavish adherence to a predetermined, formulaic and
essentially static tonal architecture, as well as an emphasis, sometimes
excessive, on melodic and thematic material generally lacking the potential
for truly dramatic development. Often the music seems stillborn and
predictable, falling short of the ideals associated with ‘this noble musical
form’ (Schumann) – a form which, according to Rosen, was the ‘vehicle of the
sublime’ after Beethoven, indeed the principal means by which the ‘highest
musical ambitions’ could be realized.
Nevertheless, the best 19th-century sonatas contain many novel features as
well as variants on compositional procedures found in Classical works. Such
innovations include a fluid, expansive melodic handling in which symmetrical
periodicity is often sacrificed to broader gestures at various hierarchical
levels; a richer harmonic and tonal palette, as well as rapid and extreme
shifts between harmonic regions; a pervasive exploitation of motif at the
same time as an eclectic blend of disparate materials (a technique possibly
deriving from improvisatory practices, which certainly influenced
Beethoven's middle-period and late sonatas); overarching cyclical
tendencies, whereby reminiscences occur, as in the ‘Rückblick’ from Brahms's
op.5, or such that ‘each movement is based on a transformation of the themes
of the others’ (Rosen); and a fusion of the typical four-movement structure
into one amalgam, most notably in Liszt's B minor Sonata, which is often
referred to as a ‘double-function form’. Although (as Newman observed) ‘no
front-rank Romantic sonata was identified with a programme, even a vague
one, by its composer’, a greater range of characterization was achieved
through operatic, folk-derived, hymn-like and highly chromatic idioms, which
were lavishly and imaginatively used in altogether new contexts.
Most 19th-century sonatas have four movements, the first of which typically
subscribes to the sonata-form model, at least in more conventional
repertory. But in ‘progressive’ sonatas, especially Brahms's, the blurring
between sectional divisions noted above often occurs, with considerable
development outside the formal development section, and an ‘influx of
expositional traits into the recapitulation’ (Leikin). As for the exposition
itself, the opposition or polarity so vital to the 18th-century sonata
principle is often replaced (in Rosen's words) by ‘only a sense of distance’
, possibly being further ‘weakened by a chromatic blurring of the approach
to the second tonality’ (usually the dominant in major-key movements, often
the relative major in minor-key ones). Rosen maintained that, in many
Romantic sonatas, ‘exposition as opposition and recapitulation as resolution
have almost disappeared’, because the end-weighted structural thrust of the
prevalent ‘plot archetype’ overshadows and even obliterates the climax point
at the close of the development section as found in most Classical sonatas.
The internal compositional dynamic is additionally altered by ‘the virtual
elimination of full-fledged themes as tonal and melodic landmarks’,
explained by Newman as an ‘extreme consequence of continuous motivic writing
’.
Whereas the expectations for first movements proved constraining to many
composers, not least Brahms, second movements offered a broad spectrum of
formal and expressive possibilities. Typical designs included binary or
ternary forms, a compact rondo form (A–B–A–B–A) and a theme-and-variations
format, taken at a moderate tempo more often than a slow one. Third
movements were usually lively scherzos, whether or not they bore that title,
while finales tended to have a rondo construction, although other formal
templates were also used. Newman remarked that the ‘finale posed the chief
structural problem, one main reason apparently being a felt need to alter,
intensify, and, unfortunately, overcomplicate the traditionally light, gay
rondo sufficiently for it to carry more weight’. In Brahms's case, ‘the
tempo, drive, and melodic intensity of the finale are sufficient to achieve
a clear peak in the over-all profile’, despite the greater weight given to
the slow and scherzo movements in his piano and duo sonatas.
Practical considerations often inspired the composition of sonatas, whether
particular performance opportunities, the invitation of a publisher or
performer, or the desire to write for students. For younger composers, the
sonata offered a perfect first work to launch a career in print: hence
Schumann's comments above. Sonatas also appealed to many women composers
(perhaps because of a generic ‘respectability’), among them Louise Farrenc,
Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Luise Adolpha Le Beau, Cécile Chaminade
and Ethel Smyth. As already suggested, sonatas were often written as
teaching-pieces, perhaps in an old-fashioned ‘pedagogic’ style or a somewhat
reduced format – for instance, a petite sonatine as opposed to the grande
sonate played in public by a virtuoso pianist.
Newman's analysis of the 19th-century sonata settings identified in
Hofmeister's Musikalisch-literarischer Monatsbericht neuer Musikalien
reveals that 41% were for solo piano, 21% for piano and violin, 11% for
piano duet, 6% for piano and flute, and 5% for piano and cello, with other
combinations occurring less frequently. That the largest group was for solo
piano is hardly surprising, given the instrument's central importance
throughout the era. But all told, so-called ‘accompanied sonatas’ – for
piano plus one other instrument (which ‘accompanied’ the piano) – form a
considerable corpus. In general, the piano part retained the prominence it
enjoyed in early duo sonatas, to the point that the titles to Brahms's
sonatas continued to list the piano first. Composers of violin–piano sonatas
include Schumann, Franck and Fauré, while Hummel, Onslow and Rubinstein
wrote works for viola and piano. Sonatas for cello and piano were composed
by Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms, Saint-Saëns, Hiller, Reger, Vierne and
Fauré; for clarinet and piano by Brahms, Draeseke and Stanford; and for
flute and piano by Kuhlau, Reinecke and Pierné. Other sonata settings exist
for horn and piano, oboe and piano, bassoon and piano, unaccompanied violin,
organ and two pianos. Arrangements or transcriptions of solo sonatas for two
or more instruments were also concocted, both to expand ensemble
possibilities and to increase the market for new scores. For instance, the
‘Marche funèbre’ from Chopin's op.35 appeared in well over 100 different
formats, including settings for two pianos eight hands, salon orchestra, and
a trio comprising harmonium, violin and cello.
(iv) Publishing.
Leipzig, Paris and London were the main publication centres for 19th-century
sonatas, which tended to be produced in very small print runs (as was also
the case with other genres) and occasionally on a subscription basis. The
parts in duo sonatas were published separately until fairly late in the
century, the piano part having at most a short cue from the other
instrument. Newman observed that ‘the sonata has always been one of the
easier genres to print because so few instruments have been involved’, but
he quoted Gottfried Fink's complaint from 1839 that ‘only the smallest
number of new sonatas find a publisher nowadays’ – an odd remark, which does
not square with the evidence. Not only were arrangements devised to appeal
to wider audiences, but publishers resorted to elaborate covers and fancy
titles to promote sales, in addition to publishing individual sonata
movements separately. Guides on performance also appeared in profusion, of
which perhaps the most notable is Czerny's Über den richtigen Vortrag der
sämtlichen Beethoven'schen Klavierwerke, which discusses articulation, tempo
and additional matters with reference to Beethoven's piano sonatas, among
other works.
(v) Performance.
As already noted, sonatas featured prominently in piano recitals in the late
1830s and beyond, such as those of Liszt, Clara Wieck and Moscheles in the
early part of the era; Rubinstein and Bülow in the mid- to late 19th
century; and Paderewski, Rachmaninoff and Hofmann at the end of the century.
Sonatas were played by such violinists as Joachim, Ysaÿe and Kreisler
(Paganini performed only his own highly idiosyncratic examples) and by the
cellist Piatti. Public performances of ensemble sonatas took place in all
the leading centres, particularly Paris and London, promoted by concert
series, music societies, educational establishments and even the musical
press. Amateurs also performed sonatas in more private settings, although
many preferred ‘the lightest, frothiest examples’ (Newman) rather than the
relatively serious and technically difficult works more typical of the
genre. The supremely challenging sonatas of Beethoven were frequently played
by serious students and professionals alike (for instance in all-Beethoven
recitals), thus indicating his seminal influence up to the end of the 19th
century and beyond.
4. 20th century.
The distinctiveness of the sonata as a genre had, by the end of the 20th
century, all but disappeared. The title had lost its traditional implication
of a work in several movements for piano alone or with another instrument. A
great many neo-classical sonatas follow these conventions, but, as the term
‘neo-classical’ itself implies, continuity of sonata writing was lost, and
perhaps only in Soviet Russia was any new tradition established. It is true
that Beethoven has often been cited in connection with piano sonatas by
Tippett (no.3, 1972–3), Boulez (no.2, 1947–8) and Barraqué (1950–52), but
that means only that those composers approached the solo piano medium with
something of the strength and seriousness of Beethoven; the references in
the Boulez piece to the Hammerklavier form relationships with a specific
model rather than with a tradition. Paradoxically, the three masters of the
Second Viennese School, for whom sonata form was a constant guide, left only
one sonata among them: Berg’s op.1 for piano (1907–8).
At the beginning of the century, however, the Brahmsian sonata tradition was
being perpetuated in the work of Reger. His later compositions include
several sonatas for string instrument and piano in which allusion to Bach,
formally and contrapuntally, increased, and that tendency is certainly no
less obvious in the seven sonatas for violin alone, op.91 (1905), the first
significant sonatas for solo melody instrument since the 18th century. Thus
Reger’s sonatas were not only a culmination of the 19th-century tradition:
they looked forward to the classicism, eventually neo-classicism, which was
to play an important part in sonata writing for the next 50 years. A similar
place, though in a different tradition, might be ascribed to the three late,
finely and sparely wrought sonatas of Fauré: the Violin Sonata no.2 op.108
(1916–17), the Cello Sonata no.1 op.109 (1917), and the Cello Sonata no.2
op.117 (1921).
Debussy’s three late sonatas (1915–17) also show a purification of style,
but here there is little reference to formal archetypes. What is involved is
rather a clarification of Debussy’s own, individual technique, removing from
it any literary or pictorial association (although he gave the unofficial
subtitle ‘Pierrot angry with the moon’ to the Cello Sonata). In the second
piece he abandoned conventional sonata scoring, writing the work for flute,
viola and harp; that innovation opened the way for such unusually scored
sonatas as Ravel’s for violin and cello (1920–22) and Poulenc’s for two
clarinets (1918), clarinet and bassoon (1922) and brass trio (1922).
If Debussy’s sonatas refer much more to his own earlier work than to any
tradition, those of Skryabin and Ives are equally personal. The late piano
sonatas of Skryabin (the last, no.10, dates from 1913) are single-movement
structures in which tonal modulation has almost no functional part; in
expressive terms they relate to a never completed cataclysmic ‘mystery’.
Ives, who left four numbered sonatas for violin and piano and two for piano,
used the sonata as a container for reminiscences of popular music, responses
to literature and nature, and so on. The movements cannot normally be
related to traditional formal models, although the total form may be: the
four movements of the Piano Sonata no.2 ‘Concord’ (c1914–19), for example,
include a scherzo as the second and a slow movement as the third.
The various sonatas produced by Debussy, Skryabin and Ives in the decade
1910–20 had already broken almost completely with 19th-century standards of
sonata writing. In the next decade there was a widespread attempt to recover
tradition, but not directly; instead of following Brahms and Reger,
composers looked back to Beethoven and, more commonly, still further.
Stravinsky claimed that, in his Piano Sonata 1924, he ‘used the term sonata
in its original meaning … therefore, I did not regard myself as restricted
by any predetermined form’; nevertheless, he admitted to having made a study
of Beethoven’s sonatas prior to the composition, and there are distinct
traces of Beethoven as well as the Baroque in the work. By the time of the
brief Sonata for Two Pianos (1943–4) Stravinsky was even able to use sonata
and variation forms.
Bartók also made a return to Baroque counterpoint in his Piano Sonata
(1926), where again the shadow of Beethoven can be felt; but the music’s
rhythmic and harmonic aggressiveness are quite new. The two sonatas for
violin and piano (1921, 1922) are more spontaneous in form and feeling, and
remarkable for the independence of their instrumental parts. All three of
Bartók’s sonatas of the 1920s open with movements in sonata form, as do the
Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion (1937), and the Solo Violin Sonata
(1944), where the influence of the Bachian sonata is strongest. Other
composers who could be said, like Stravinsky and Bartók, to have looked back
a century or more in writing sonatas included Poulenc, Martinů and
Hindemith. Hindemith, most of whose works in the genre are in the smoothed
neo-classical style of his later years, left sonatas for most of the
instruments in current use, including harp, english horn and tuba.
What might be called the ‘neo-classical sonata’ was also widely practised in
the USA after 1930, for example Sessions’s Piano Sonata no.1 (1927–30). In
Sessions’s later sonatas, however, the neo-classical frame became hidden in
an increasingly complex and individual style; and a similar development in
Carter’s music took place most swiftly at the time of his three sonatas: for
piano (1945–6), for cello and piano (1948) and for flute, oboe, cello and
harpsichord (1952). The ‘sonata’ movements of Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes
for prepared piano (1946–8) are in a two-part, pseudo-Baroque form, yet the
oriental modality and character of the music make the description
‘neo-classical’ less than helpful. Some of Prokofiev’s sonatas might with
more justice be given that appellation, but those he wrote in Soviet Russia
(Piano Sonatas nos.6–9, 1939–47; Violin Sonata no.1, 1938–46; Flute Sonata,
1943; Cello Sonata, 1949) lack the conscious archaism or irony of
neo-classicism, perhaps because the model they seem to suppose – a
19th-century Russian sonata tradition – never existed.
Instead they established a tradition of their own, and led towards
Shostakovich, whose Viola Sonata (1975) is among those late works in which a
sense of the ageing of the musical tradition has a personal reality. Being
at once weighty with history and individual in presentation (as the
testament of a soloist), the sonata was a natural form for composers who,
for whatever reason, felt kinship with the past in terms both of its
achievements and of its philosophy of personal expression. Not only
Shostakovich’s sonatas can be understood in this light, but also Barraqué’s
Piano Sonata.
Other composers aligned their works rather with earlier traditions:
Ferneyhough’s plurally titled Sonatas for string quartet (1967) is partly a
response to Purcell, and Davies’s St Michael Sonata for wind (1957), a
sonata of a Gabrielian sort (although later sonatas by this composer are
aesthetically more on the Shostakovich model). Or the title may be used
simply to indicate that the work concerned is for a soloist, abstract and
serious, without any implications for its form. Boulez’s three piano sonatas
(1946, 1947–8 and 1955–7) show a progression from traditional patterns (of
two movements in no.1, of four in the post-Hammerklavier no.2) to one
determinedly new. Ligeti’s Viola Sonata (1991–4), as a set of inventions for
unaccompanied soloist, as assertive statement, as virtuoso showpiece and as
a sequence of forms not beholden to the past, fits into many of the sonata’s
histories.
© Oxford University Press 2006
SANDRA MANGSEN (1), JOHN IRVING (2), JOHN RINK (3), PAUL GRIFFITHS (4)

 *forma* sonata, fischia e arrivano altri piccoli mega)
e che fai, gli posti il Rosen???
:) 

 :)
non se lo merita :-)))
Z

 non se lo merita :-)))
Le forme sonata? Bello. Bisogna proprio meritarselo.
dR