Ludwig van Beethoven's manuscript sketch forPiano Sonata No. 28, Movement IVGeschwind, doch nicht zu sehr und mit Entschlossenheit (Allegro), in his own handwriting. The piece was completed in 1816.
Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op. 101
In music asonata (/səˈnɑːtə/; pl.sonate)[a] literally means a pieceplayed as opposed to acantata (Latin and Italiancantare, "to sing"), a piecesung.[1]: 17 The term evolved through thehistory of music, designating a variety of forms until theClassical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside thefugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas maintain the overarching structure.
The termsonatina, pl.sonatine, thediminutive form of sonata, is often used for a short or technically easy sonata.
In theBaroque period, a sonata was for one or more instruments, almost always withcontinuo. After the Baroque period most works designated as sonatas specifically are performed by a solo instrument, most often a keyboard instrument, or by a solo instrument accompanied by a keyboard instrument.
Sonatas for a solo instrument other than keyboard have been composed, as have sonatas for other combinations of instruments.
Individual sheet music of a sonata, written in the Baroque period.[2]
In the works ofArcangelo Corelli and his contemporaries, two broad classes of sonata were established, and were first described bySébastien de Brossard in hisDictionaire de musique (third edition, Amsterdam, ca. 1710): thesonata da chiesa (that is, suitable for use in church), which was the type "rightly known asSonatas", and thesonata da camera (proper for use at court), which consists of a prelude followed by a succession of dances, all in the same key.[1]: 21, 40 Although the four, five, or six movements of the sonata da chiesa are also most often in one key, one or two of the internal movements are sometimes in a contrasting tonality.[3]
The sonata da chiesa, generally for one or twoviolins andbasso continuo, consisted normally of a slow introduction, a loosely fuguedallegro, acantabile slow movement, and a lively finale in somebinary form suggesting affinity with the dance-tunes of thesuite. This scheme, however, was not very clearly defined, until the works of Arcangelo Corelli when it became the essential sonata and persisted as a tradition of Italian violin music.
The sonata da camera consisted almost entirely of idealized dance-tunes. On the other hand, the features ofsonata da chiesa andsonata da camera then tended to be freely intermixed. Although nearly half ofJohann Sebastian Bach's 1,100 surviving compositions, arrangements, and transcriptions are instrumental works, only about 4% are sonatas.[4]
The termsonata is also applied to the series ofover 500 works for harpsichord solo, or sometimes for other keyboard instruments, byDomenico Scarlatti, originally published under the nameEssercizi per il gravicembalo (Exercises for the Harpsichord). Most of these pieces are in one binary-form movement only, with two parts that are in the same tempo and use the same thematic material, though occasionally there will be changes in tempo within the sections. They are frequently virtuosic, and use more distant harmonic transitions and modulations than were common for other works of the time. They were admired for their great variety and invention.
Both the solo andtrio sonatas ofVivaldi show parallels with the concerti he was writing at the same time. He composed over 70 sonatas, the great majority of which are of the solo type; most of the rest are trio sonatas, and a very small number are of the multivoice type.[5]
The sonatas ofDomenico Paradies are mild and elongated works with a graceful and melodious little second movement included.
The practice of theClassical period would become decisive for the sonata; the term moved from being one of many terms indicating genres or forms, to designating the fundamental form of organization for large-scale works. This evolution stretched over fifty years. The term came to apply both to the structure of individual movements (seeSonata form andHistory of sonata form) and to the layout of the movements in a multi-movement work. In the transition to the Classical period there were several names given to multimovement works, includingdivertimento,serenade, andpartita, many of which are now regarded effectively as sonatas. The usage ofsonata as the standard term for such works began somewhere in the 1770s.Haydn labels his first piano sonata as such in 1771, after which the termdivertimento is used sparingly in his output. The termsonata was increasingly applied to either a work for keyboard alone (seepiano sonata), or for keyboard and one other instrument, often the violin or cello. It was less and less frequently applied to works with more than two instrumentalists; for example, piano trios were not often labelledsonata for piano, violin, and cello.
Initially the most common layout of movements was:
Allegro, which at the time was understood to mean not only a tempo, but also some degree of "working out", or development, of the theme.[6][7]
A closing movement was generally an Allegro or a Presto, often labeledFinale. The form was often aRondo or Minuet.
However, two-movement layouts also occur, a practice Haydn uses as late as the 1790s. There was also in the early Classical period the possibility of using four movements, with a dance movement inserted before the slow movement, as in Haydn's piano sonatas No. 6 and No. 8.Mozart's sonatas were also primarily in three movements. Of the works that Haydn labelledpiano sonata,divertimento, orpartita inHob XIV, seven are in two movements, thirty-five are in three, and three are in four; and there are several in three or four movements whose authenticity is listed as "doubtful." Composers such asBoccherini would publish sonatas for piano and obbligato instrument with an optional third movement—–in Boccherini's case, 28 cello sonatas.
But increasingly instrumental works were laid out in four, not three movements, a practice seen first instring quartets andsymphonies, and reaching the sonata proper in the early sonatas ofBeethoven. But two- and three-movement sonatas continued to be written throughout the Classical period: Beethoven'sopus 102 pair has a two-movement C major sonata and a three-movement D major sonata. Nevertheless, works with fewer or more than four movements were increasingly felt to be exceptions; they were labelled as having movements "omitted," or as having "extra" movements.
The four-movement layout was by this point standard for the string quartet, and overwhelmingly the most common for thesymphony. The usual order of the four movements was:
An allegro, which by this point was in what is calledsonata form, complete with exposition, development, and recapitulation.
When movements appeared out of this order they would be described as "reversed", such as the scherzo coming before the slow movement in Beethoven's 9th Symphony. This usage would be noted by critics in the early 19th century, and it was codified into teaching soon thereafter.[citation needed]
It is difficult to overstate the importance of Beethoven's output of sonatas: 32 piano sonatas, plus sonatas for cello and piano or violin and piano, forming a large body of music that would over time increasingly be thought essential for any serious instrumentalist to master.
In the early 19th century, the current usage of the termsonata was established, both as regards formper se, and in the sense that a fully elaborated sonata serves as a norm for concert music in general, which other forms are seen in relation to. From this point forward, the wordsonata in music theory labels as much the abstract musical form as particular works. Hence there are references to a symphony as asonata for orchestra. This is referred to byWilliam Newman as thesonata idea.
In the early 19th century, thesonata form was defined, from a combination of previous practice and the works of important Classical composers, particularly Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, but composers such as Clementi also. It is during this period that the differences between the three- and the four-movement layouts became a subject of commentary, with emphasis on the concerto being laid out in three movements, and the symphony in four.
Ernest Newman wrote in the essay "Brahms and the Serpent":
That, perhaps, will be the ideal of the instrumental music of the future; the way to it, indeed, seems at last to be opening out before modern composers in proportion as they discard the last tiresome vestiges of sonata form. This, from being what it was originally, the natural mode of expression of a certain eighteenth century way of thinking in music, became in the nineteenth century a drag upon both individual thinking and the free unfolding of the inner vital force of an idea, and is now simply a shop device by which a bad composer may persuade himself and the innocent reader of textbooks that he is a good one.[8]
The role of the sonata as an extremely important form of extended musical argument would inspire composers such asHindemith,Prokofiev,Shostakovich,Tailleferre,Ustvolskaya, andWilliams to compose in sonata form, and works with traditional sonata structures continue to be composed and performed.
Research into the practice and meaning of sonata form, style, and structure has been the motivation for important theoretical works byHeinrich Schenker,Arnold Schoenberg, andCharles Rosen among others; and the pedagogy of music continued to rest on an understanding and application of the rules of sonata form as almost two centuries of development in practice and theory had codified it.
The development of the classical style and its norms of composition formed the basis for much of the music theory of the 19th and 20th centuries. As an overarching formal principle, sonata was accorded the same central status as Baroquefugue; generations of composers, instrumentalists, and audiences were guided by this understanding of sonata as an enduring and dominant principle in Western music. The sonata idea begins before the term had taken on its present importance, along with the evolution of the Classical period's changing norms. The reasons for these changes, and how they relate to the evolving sense of a new formal order in music, is a matter to which research is devoted. Some common factors which were pointed to include: the shift of focus from vocal music to instrumental music; changes in performance practice, including the loss of thecontinuo.[9]
Crucial to most interpretations of the sonata form is the idea of a tonal center; and, as theGrove Concise Dictionary of Music puts it: "The main form of the group embodying the 'sonata principle', the most important principle of musical structure from the Classical period to the 20th century: that material first stated in a complementary key be restated in the home key".([10]
The sonata idea has been thoroughly explored by William Newman in his monumental three-volume workSonata in the Classic Era (A History of the Sonata Idea), begun in the 1950s and published in what has become the standard edition of all three volumes in 1972.
Heinrich Schenker argued that there was anUrlinie or basic tonal melody, and a basic bass figuration. He held that when these two were present, there was basic structure, and that the sonata represented this basic structure in a whole work with a process known asinterruption.[11]
As a practical matter Schenker applied his ideas to the editing of the piano sonatas of Beethoven, using original manuscripts and his own theories to "correct" the available sources. The basic procedure was the use of tonal theory to infer meaning from available sources as part of the critical process, even to the extent of completing works left unfinished by their composers. While many of these changes were and are controversial, that procedure has a central role today in music theory, and is an essential part of the theory of sonata structure as taught in most music schools.
Schenker, Heinrich. 1979.Free Composition (Der freie Satz): Volume III of New Musical Theories and Fantasies, edited byOswald Jonas, translated by Ernst Oster. 2 vols. New York: Longman.ISBN0-582-28073-7.
Newman, William S. 1966.The Sonata in the Baroque Era, revised ed. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. LCCN 66-19475.
Newman, William S. 1972b.The Sonata in the Classic Era: The Second Volume of a History of the Sonata Idea, second edition. A History of the Sonata Idea 2; The Norton Library N623. New York: W. W. Norton.ISBN0-393-00623-9.
Newman, William S. 1983a.The Sonata in the Baroque Era, fourth edition. A History of the Sonata Idea 1. New York: W. W. Norton.ISBN0-393-95275-4.
Newman, William S. 1983b.The Sonata in the Classic Era, third edition. A History of the Sonata Idea 2. New York: W. W. Norton.ISBN0-393-95286-X.
Newman, William S. 1983c.The Sonata since Beethoven, third edition. A History of the Sonata Idea 3. New York: W. W. Norton.ISBN0-393-95290-8.
Newman, William S. 1988.Beethoven on Beethoven: Playing His Piano Music His Way. New York: W. W. Norton.ISBN0-393-02538-1 (cloth)ISBN0-393-30719-0 (pbk).
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