Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Forms

Sonata form is, fundamentally, a dramatic structure based on tonal conflict. In the opening section a tonal opposition is drawn, as conflicting key areas, normally allied with similarly distinctive thematic characters, are established. The central section prolongs this conflict, thereby heightening the dramatic tension. In the final section the music of the opening is recast in such a way that the conflict is resolved. Because of its power, simplicity, and adaptability to various tonal idioms, sonata form was the chief vehicle of dramatic instrumental music from the later-18th, through the 19th, and well into the 20th century.The musicological and theoretical literatures abound with studies of works in sonata form. The form itself, however, is seldom set centre stage. Rather, other musical features peculiar to individual works or composers or eras play the main role, with formal issues occupying a more peripheral part. Even when matters of form are more central, they rarely extend to questions of compositional processes that generate form or basic issues related to formal coherence.This book will present nine essays whose central focus is sonata form. The essays assembled here are united in an essential way by a fundamental conviction held by their authors: that composers engage sonata form as an idea, as a principle that generates and directs dramatic energy. This viewpoint is of central importance because of a second, equally essential, common feature among the contributions: all of the sonata-form movements examined depart in some sense from established formal norms. A common overarching perspective, then, will be evident on every page, as these departures are viewed not as isolated modifications to an established mould or pattern, but rather as manifestations of an engagement with an idea or principle that is active, passionate, and at times intensely difficult.Developing an understanding of works with anomalous formal qualities - accounting for idiosyncratic tonal discourse that threatens to undermine the unfolding of form-defining qualities or events - is a central concern of the discipline currently. These anomalies can involve thematic, motivic or tonal designs. Each of the essays takes up these aspects of design, using particular works or an individual composer as a lens through which to survey one or more of these fundamental formal issues.