Sonata

From Baroque trios to the piano, the sonata shapes time through movements and themes.

Related

ClassicalSonataSonata FormPiano

The sonata began as a piece to be played, not sung, and became a multi-movement design. It moves themes through exposition, development and recapitulation, turning time into a route.

Origins

Sixteenth-century sonatas grew from the canzona and meant instrumental music. The Baroque split the church sonata from the chamber sonata, and Corelli's works for two to four parts set a slow-fast-slow-fast order. In the Classical era piano and violin sonatas made sonata form central.

Listening features

Identify the movements first: usually fast, slow, fast, with a minuet or scherzo in the Classical sonata. Then follow the exposition: a forceful first theme, a lyrical second theme, often in another key. The development breaks and modulates, and the recapitulation brings it home to the tonic. In a solo sonata listen to the hands; in a duo, hear the exchange.

Composers and works

Corelli's trios set the Baroque model. Scarlatti left hundreds of single-movement keyboard works. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven shaped the Classical three- or four-movement design. Schubert, Brahms and Prokofiev widened its scale and harmony.

Lineage

It grows from the canzona and dance suite and leads to the symphony and string quartet; the concerto borrows its double exposition, while the étude and character piece branch off from its single movements.

Misconceptions

Sonata is not a form; sonata form is only one structure it often uses. It is not limited to piano, since any solo or small ensemble can play one. Nor must it have three movements, as Baroque and modern examples show.

Sources

• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry "Sonata" — definitions and dating checked, not quoted
• Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, vol. 2 — context checked, not quoted

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.