Sonata form

From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.

Sonata form is a special way of organizing a piece of music. It has been used a great deal since the Classical period (from the middle of the 18th century onwards). To understand it fully you need to listen to some pieces of music in sonata form. It is helpful if you know something about the different keys.

Sonata form is not just used in sonatas. It can be used in movements from symphonies, concertos, overtures etc.

In the Baroque period composers like Bach and Handel wrote a lot of dance movements such as minuets. These were in “binary form”. This meant that there were two sections. The two sections were often the same length, and were separated by a double bar which meant that each section was repeated. The music would not be in the same key all the time. The first section would modulate (change key) and then the second section would gradually modulate back again so that it sounded finished at the end.

Domenico Scarlatti wrote lots of sonatas for harpsichord which are in binary form, but they started to get longer and more complicated. The first section would start with a theme (tune) in the main key, and then modulate to another key for a contrasting tune. The second section might be longer than the first second, starting off by modulating to strange keys before arriving back to repeat the main tunes. This is the beginning of sonata form.

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven developed the idea of sonata form. A movement in sonata form has three sections called: “exposition”, “development” and “recapitulation”. In the exposition we hear all the main material: the first tune- or group of tunes - in the main key, then a contrasting tune or tunes in a related key (normally the “dominant” i.e. they key on the 5th note of the scale of the main key). In the development section the music is developed, going into several different keys. The music here feels unstable. If you listen carefully you feel a sense of tension. You want to get back to the main key. In the recapitulation the exposition is repeated, but it changes towards the end so that it finishes in the main key. It feels as if the tension has gone and we feel happy.

This way of building a piece of music was used by almost every composer from the mid 18th century onwards – well into the 20th century. It gives scope for a very dramatic piece. Of course, composers sometime use it differently. There is often a sense of development during the whole piece, not just during the so-called “development section”. If you listen, for example, to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony you hear a movement which spends all the time developing the famous idea you hear at the beginning: the first four notes (DA-DA-DA-DAAAA). Even the other three movements carry on developing this idea.