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9 6 J a m e s W e b s t e r Comments on James Hepokoski’s Essay “Sonata Theory and Dialogic Form” James Webster James Hepokoski’s essay is based on his and Warren Darcy’s new and manifestly important treatise Elements of Sonata Theory. I shall restrict myself to two brief comments: on his interpretation of the ‘sonata principle ’ (with respect to Egmont), and on the concept of ‘dialogic form’ (with respect to Die Ruinen von Athen). Egmont. The (unfortunately named) ‘sonata principle’ was introduced by Edward T. Cone in 1968—“important statements made in a key other than the tonic must either be re-stated in the tonic, or brought into a closer relation with the tonic, before the movement ends”—and rapidly became an analytical-critical commonplace, for example in the writings of Charles Rosen and myself.1 Recently, Hepokoski has subjected it to anelaboratecritique(citationsinhisnotes4and5[>111]),ofwhichmany aspects are well-founded, others dubious or overargued. I will focus on Cone’s qualification “or brought into a closer relation with the tonic,” in the context of Egmont. Although Cone gave no examples that are directly pertinent, he clearly had Beethoven’s procedure (and other comparable ones) in mind: the second group, originally in A-flat, is recapitulated not in F minor (i–III / i–i) or major (i–III / i–I), but transposed down a fifth, in D-flat (i–III / i–VI). The issue is twofold: (a) To what extent can a transposed but non-tonic recapitulation of significant second-group material count as a resolution within a sonata context? (b) If (as in Egmont) the tonic is not restored at all until after the thematic recapitulation, what are the consequences? (a)Hepokoski’sviewisthattheEEC(Iwouldsay‘structuralcadence’) from the exposition, in order to count as ‘essential structural closure’ (ESC), must be recapitulated in the tonic. (By extension, this applies to most or all of the significant material from the second group.) However, in the nineteenth century the range of normative recapitulatory key-rela- 9 7 C o m m e n t s o n J a m e s H e p o k o s k i ’ s E s s a y tionships (like key-relationships generally) was much expanded.2 The entire second group can be transposed down a fifth (Schubert’s String Quintet in C major: I–bIII–V / I–bVI–I; Brahms’s Third Symphony in F Major: I–III–iii / I–VI–vi); or appear in the tonic (often in both modes) when the exposition employed two keys (Schubert’s Grand Duo in D major: I–bVI–V / I–i–I); or be divided between two tonics when the exposition had only one (Brahms’s G-Minor Piano Quartet: i–V–v / i–VI–i). If tonic recapitulation were the sole criterion, the (absurd) result would be that in Schubert’s String Quintet the middle section of the exposition is not ‘really’ recapitulated, whereas in the Grand Duo it is! Nor would it help to argue that, since these sections originally stand in neither tonic nor dominant and are therefore tonally ‘transitional,’ it doesn’t matter in what key they are recapitulated; in Schubert and Brahms these sections are constituents of the form, which count as much as the final ones. The concept “brought into closer relation with the tonic” is not unduly vague or factitious, despite Cone’s failure to spell it out. Transposition down a fifth indeed creates a powerful analogy to the V → I relation of the sonata principle, particularly since such a recapitulation usually ends in the tonic, such that the transposed passages become more closely related to that key phenomenologically as well. Another possibility involves a change of mode, as in the second theme of the Grand Duo: C minor is of course a closer relation to C major than A-flat. In the exposition of Brahms’s Piano Quartet (above), the second theme appears in the ‘paradoxical’ dominant major, before the later second group reverts to the diatonic dominant minor; in the recapitulation the diatonic E-flat major is, again, more closely related to the tonic. (From this point of view the occasional transposition a fifth up, as in the first movements of Beethoven’s quartets Op. 130 and 132 and Schubert’s Unfinished, might seem more problematic, although in these cases it is ameliorated by the fact that the keys are remote (in Op. 130) or the overall tonic is...

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