begin audio session; lecture 3, part 4:
Sonata Form:
Thematic and Tonal Analysis
"We have now finally reached the form as far as all of this music we're going to talk about is concerned in the Classic era especially, and in much of Romanticism, there is one form that dominates, and I mean dominates, its the "sonata form".
The sonata form (not to be confused with a sonata) means the way a specific movement is organized, and can appear in any genre: sonatas, string quartets, symphonies and concertos. Exposition, development and recapitulation, Dr. Broyles states, are the three principle sections of sonata form, all of which occur within a single movement. He analyzed these three sections from two perspectives: thematic content, and tonal structure.
From a thematic perspective, the exposition presents the main themes dividing them into two groups: group 1 and group 2. In the development, the composer takes the themes presented in the exposition and manipulates them in various ways. In the recapitulation the composer returns to the themes as presented in the exposition.
Tonally, the composer begins in the tonic key, and typically moves into the dominant key. In the development section in sonata form, the composer modulates extensively, and "tonality is very unstable" said Dr. Broyles. "It feels unstable, it feels unsettled and you feel tension, because you're waiting for this to work itself out."
"The key to this is the recapitulation," concluded Dr. Broyles. At the moment of the recapitulation the music returns to the tonic key and remains there for the remainder of the movement, releasing the tension created during the development section.
