Representing Sonatas

The basics of definition

Defining 'definition', the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993 edition) proposes 'a precise statement of the nature, properties, scope, or essential qualities of a thing; an explanation of a concept etc.'. There is no overt acknowledgement of the probability that most if not all such statements, in aiming to be both precise and concise, will, when thought about, tend to provoke doubts and questions, therefore pointing up the likelihood that, as 'explanation' proceeds, qualifications of the initial, would-be definitive, statement will proliferate.

The same dictionary's definition of 'sonata form' – 'the musical form of a sonata; spec. A type of composition in three main sections (exposition, development, and recapitulation) in which the thematic material is explored, being characteristic of the first movement in a sonata, symphony, concerto, etc.' – reinforces the sense of definition as reductive to a well-nigh self-destructive extent. The kind of precision and concision that might be relevant to all possible examples of the form in question seems impossible to achieve, and even the slightest expansion of a generalized definition is likely to embody assumptions and received orthodoxies which need to be treated with caution, if not directly challenged, as soon as those inherent generalities are exposed to the particulars of any number of compositional examples.

Specialized dictionaries attempt to embody a sense of such particulars in the definition itself, as when the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music (1994 edition) describes sonata form as a

type of mus. construction (sometimes known as compound binary) normally used in the first movement of a sonata, sym., or conc. (and in other types of work). Used also in other movements. Regular sonata form implies 3 sections: 1. EXPOSITION (containing first subject, in tonic key, and 2nd subject, in dominant, and sometimes further subjects), often repeated and followed by 2. DEVELOPMENT (in which the material of the Exposition is worked out in a kind of free fantasia), and 3. RECAPITULATION (in which the Exposition is repeated, though often with modifications, and with the 2nd subject now in the tonic). The Recapitulation has a coda, a peroration of moderate length, though some composers, incl. Beethoven, extended it into what amounts to a 2nd Development section. The basis of sonata form is key relationships.

Here, in a paragraph of 'moderate length', is an attempt to flesh out the simplest, most generalized definition of sonata form in a way which, while acknowledging the immense variety of compositional takes on the concept, still remains more general than particular. But even this degree of expansion brings with it interpretative glosses, of which the final, throwaway suggestion that key relationships are more basic than (for example) thematic processes is particularly vulnerable to challenge. As such, this definition represents an early stage in a process of explanatory elaboration and interpretation which has now reached new lengths of comprehensiveness in the book by James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, a text which (bearing the Shorter Oxford's definition in mind) seeks to promote a distinctive understanding of the nature and essential qualities of sonata form, as well as of its properties and scope, without – ever – resorting to over-simplification.

Motives for theorizing

It is not mere irritation with the hapless simplifications of dictionary definitions that provokes Hepokoski and Darcy to explore the subject of sonata form at such length. New initiatives in music theory, as in other forms of thinking about materials of great cultural importance, arise naturally out of dissatisfaction with existing, normative concepts and interpretative procedures as proposed and adopted down the ages by the most expert authorities in the field: and, where sonata form is concerned, the authors' dissatisfaction extends into the very substance of critical interpretation as this is embodied in a mixture of verbal narrative and symbolic representation. It is no longer enough to have new, better ideas about describing how the five basic types of sonata form proposed by Hepokoski and Darcy manifest themselves in a wide...