With reference at three contrasting works, illustrate the changes in approach to sonata form
in Western music from 1750 to 1850.
“I want nothing better, more flexible or more complete than
the sonata form, which contains everything necessary for my
structural purposes.”1 - Sergei Prokofiev
“Sonatas are like chimpanzees”2 - Charles Rosen
The word “sonata” has Latin roots, and it was formed based on the Italian word “suono”, that
means “sound” and ‘it was at first used to specify a composition not using human voices, in
distinction from the cantata in which voices were heard.’ (Hanchett Granger Henry 1905:
237). Sonata form, as it is now known, began its evolution in the second quarter of the
nineteenth century, around 1830, becoming for many, the most thriving musical forms in the
history of Western music. The term of “Sonata form” refers not only to the third or fourth
movement piece of music as Sonatas, Symphonies or chamber music, but mostly to a single
movement, usually the First Movement, known also as “Sonata Allegro form”. By its
standard meaning, “Sonata Allegro” it is a three-part form, consisting in an exposition, a
development and recapitulation.
The exposition section presents the main melodic material, respectively two melodic themes
and it is often repeated. The Primary Theme establishes the tonic and the Secondary Theme,
(sometimes called ‘feminine’ because is usually more lyrical than the Primary Theme)
modulates to a closely related key, usually the dominant or, in the case of a minor tonic, to
1.Prokofiev, interview with Olin Downes on February 4, 1930; quoted in David Ewen, The
Book of Modern Composers (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1942), p. 143
2.Rosen Charles, (1988) in the preface of his book Sonata Form, referring to Stephen Jay Gould’s remarks
about the chimpanzee in his review article “Animals” like us in New York Review of Books 25 June 1987, where
he says that you cannot define the chimpanzee breed from analyzing a few exemplary
, 2
the major relative. These two are bound by a section called, in the words of Charles Rosen
(1927), a ‘bridge passage’.
The development section is modulatory and unstable. Numerous motives from the exposition
section are explored in different tonalities, not randomly, but delving into the conflicts
presented in the exposition. Furthermore, a one new theme can be found in this middle
section. The development ends with a retransition passage, that anticipates the
recapitulation’s motivic material and prepares the return to the tonic.
The recapitulation section regularly reaffirms the exposition’ theme, but in the tonic key. This
section is followed by a coda if the work is relatively long.
Example 1. The three main section of sonata
Although the attempt to define a musical form and its evolution throughout history by
analyzing only the work of the most important composers can be easily discredited and
difficult to comprehend in a short number of phrases, I will hopefully be able to correctly
represent the main characteristics of the sonata form as we now know it, with the help of
these three contrasting pieces of music. This essay therefore, looks at the evolution of the
sonata form using the work of Domenico Scarlatti, Mozart and Liszt.
The One Movement Sonata in D Major, classified as K119 or Longo 415 3, was composed
around 1749 by Domenico Scarlatti, whose sonatas are organized by the standard late
Baroque and early Classic binary pattern. This sonata has two equal sections, each repeated,
the first closing on the dominant or relative key and the second modulating to several keys
before ending to the tonic. With a bold, bright opening, the first section presents distinct
3.The sonatas are classified by K. numbers in Ralph Kirkpatrick’s index of the sonatas or by a different set of
numbers in A. Longo’s complete edition of the sonatas.
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