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Beyond‘Norms and Deformations’: Towards a Theory of Sonata Form as Reception History

Preliminaries

1. Sonata forms by Charles Rosen, 1988, Norton edition, in English - Rev.
2. In the theory of sonata form it is often asserted that other movements stand in relation to the sonata-allegro form, either, per Charles Rosen that they are really 'sonata forms', plural—or as Edward T. Cone asserts, that the sonata-allegro is the ideal to which other movement structures 'aspire'. This is particularly seen to be the case with.

Testo sulla forma sonata di un grande pianista e musicologo.Testo in traduzione italiana. Formas de Sonata - Charles Rosen. Formas de Sonata - Charles Rosen. Double-function form is a musical construction that allows for a. The sonata is composed as a single. Charles Rosen believes that the work as.

Although published as recently as 2006, James Hepokoski's and Warren Darcy's much heralded and substantially delayed Elements of Sonata Theory has been a significant presence in the field of music theory and analysis for over a decade.1 Indeed, one reads this monumental work with an unavoidable sense of déjà‐lu. Draft copies were frequently quoted in conference papers and articles for several years prior to publication. Also, many of the book's key precepts are aired by both authors in a variety of publications dating from 1992 onwards dealing with works by Beethoven, Bruckner, Sibelius and Richard Strauss amongst others, as well as historical issues such as the reception of Beethoven's symphonies and theoretical concepts including the so‐called ‘sonata principle’, ‘rotation’, ‘deformation’ and the ‘medial caesura’.2 Given the intense level of advance exposure for the authors’ ideas and the wealth of insightful precursor texts about sonata form in the High Classical Era, it is not self‐evident that there is actually a gap in the existing literature for Elements of Sonata Theory to fill, all the more so since the book was pre‐empted by its main market competitor, William Caplin's commanding and elegantly concise Classical Form.3 Nevertheless, closer inspection reveals that the publication of Elements of Sonata Theory is justified at least by its encyclopaedic aspect, by the incorporation of just enough new material (the concluding three chapters on Mozart's concertos in particular) and by the elaboration and refinement of some fundamental premises.

Chapters 1 to 4 situate Sonata Theory within the field and introduce its core precepts. Hepokoski and Darcy broadly identify three main strands in existing thought about sonata form: the ‘sonata principle’ elaborated first by Edward Cone and then by Charles Rosen, which stresses the notion that sonata movements dramatise fundamental properties of the Classical Style, especially polarisation and resolution, and which thus requires that non‐tonic material in the secondary and closing areas of the exposition be recapitulated in the tonic or else ‘brought into a closer relation’ with it (p. 242); what Mark Evan Bonds terms the ‘conformational view’, propounded initially in nineteenth‐century Formenlehren beginning with those of Carl Czerny and A. B. Marx, which essentially sees sonata form as an architectural or tectonic blueprint; and what Bonds labels the ‘generative view’, first expounded in detail by Schoenberg, which regards sonata forms as products of material process.4 In contrast, Sonata Theory claims to transcend all these viewpoints, positing that classical composers are in ‘dialogue’ with a constellation of ‘generic defaults’, which are hierarchically organised according to frequency of usage. When classical composers override ‘standard options’, they ‘deform’ generic conventions. Naturally, the ‘genre sonata form’ is subject to ‘diachronic transformation’, with the result that constellations of norms undergo incremental change: a deformation in, for example, Beethoven can ‘become a lower‐level default in Schumann, Liszt or Wagner’ (p. 11). Owing to the progressive reification of sonata ‘defaults’ through theoretical abstraction, departures from the norm in works by nineteenth‐century composers are increasingly in dialogue with textbook models. Nevertheless, the authors contend that most of the ‘sonata norms remained in place as regulative ideas throughout the nineteenth century’ (p. vii).

In order to construct a convincing analysis of any classical movement, Sonata Theory maintains that one has to identify ‘the essential generic markers’ of sonata works in the High Classical Style. These markers form a hierarchically organised ‘generic layout’, shaped on the highest level by an ‘essential sonata trajectory’ (EST) that comprises the three ‘action zones’ or ‘rotations’ traditionally labelled ‘exposition’, ‘development’ and ‘recapitulation’. The exposition unfolds an ‘essential expositional trajectory’ (EET) and culminates in an ‘essential expositional closure’ (EEC), usually in the form of a perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in a non‐tonic key. The EEC is paralleled in the recapitulation by an ‘essential structural closure’ (ESC) that affirms the tonic. The EET breaks down into four principal ‘spaces’– primary, secondary, transitional and closing (P, S, TR and C) – with TR and S being demarcated by ‘a mid‐expositional break or medial caesura (MC)’. The EET is ‘launched’ by P, supplied with ‘energy gain’ in TR, ‘relaunched’ by S and closed by C. On a lower level, the four ‘spaces’ within the expositional and recapitulatory action zones are made up of ‘spans’ punctuated by clear PACs, and the spans are themselves normally further broken down into ‘modules’. Since the EET concludes in a non‐tonic key, it is a ‘structure of promise’, whereas the full, tonic‐directed ESC constitutes a ‘structure of accomplishment’. Many sonata‐form movements of course have slow introductions and/or codas, which are classified as ‘parageneric’ areas lying outside sonata space. Hepokoski's and Darcy's view of sonata form is thus ostensibly a mixture of temporal and spatial concerns. It is also predominantly goal‐directed – concerned more with endings than beginnings – and tonally orientated, despite the distinction the authors draw between what they term ‘tonal form’ and ‘rhetorical form’, which ‘includes personalized factors of design and ad hoc expression’ (p. 23). Indeed, the EST is basically a reformulation of an interrupted Schenkerian Ursatz.5

Chapters 5 to 13 are devoted to fleshing out the details of the ‘generic layout’. Chapter 14 deals with issues specific to the minor mode and Chapter 15 examines various properties of the ‘three‐ and four‐movement sonata cycle’. The final seven chapters (16 to 23) propose and extensively elaborate a taxonomy of five sonata types. Type 1 (common in slow movements and overtures) comprises only an exposition and a recapitulation with no or minimal link and is often called ‘sonata without development’, ‘exposition‐recapitulation’, ‘slow‐movement sonata’ or ‘sonatina’ form. Type 2, often labelled ‘binary’ or ‘polythematic binary’ sonata form, lacks a ‘full’ recapitulation and has instead what Hepokoski and Darcy prefer to call a ‘tonal resolution’ occurring in conjunction with secondary or, less commonly, transitional material. Type 3 is the standard sonata model with a development and a recapitulation usually, but not invariably, beginning with the opening theme in the tonic. Type 4 is what is generally known as the ‘sonata rondo’. Finally, Type 5 is the hybrid of ritornello (tutti‐solo) principles and other sonata types (usually Type 3) employed in concertos. There are two concluding appendices further elucidating some of Sonata Theory's ‘grounding principles’ and terminology.

It is of course impossible to deal with all the intricacies of the authors’ arguments without writing another book, so this essay is confined to pursuing some salient issues: Sonata Theory's generic affiliations; its three ‘fundamental axioms’ of the ‘genre sonata’, ‘rotation’ and ‘deformation’; the taxonomy of five sonata types; and what I have termed the book's ‘neologising impulse’. The main aim of my concluding remarks is to sketch an alternative approach with particular reference to sonata‐form works of the first half of the nineteenth century.

Generic Affiliations

As its title implies, the model for Elements of Sonata Theory is ostensibly the scientific textbook, a genre that essentially requires in excess of 500 double‐column pages (which is what we get – 661 pages including appendices and indices, to be precise).6 The book's generic allegiance is confirmed on the first page of the Preface: ‘From one perspective the Elements is a research report, the product of our analyses of hundreds of individual movements by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many surrounding composers of the time (as well as later composers)’ (p. v). Hence both vocabulary and symbology rely heavily on scientific conventions. As far as the former is concerned, instead of sections and themes or thematic groups, there are ‘actions zones’ and ‘spaces’, and the general discourse is throughout liberally peppered with ‘trajectories’, ‘vectors’, ‘rotations’ and the like. Even the problematic and much‐debated term ‘deformation’ is justified by analogy to usage in the physical sciences: ‘“deformation” is descriptive of a certain state of a solid object – a change of shape, a departure from its original, normal, or customary state resulting from the application of a force’ (p. 619). As a general rule, sentences seem constructed to maximise the number of abbreviations and quasi‐scientific buzzwords. The description of expositional strategy in Chapter 2 is typical: ‘The large dotted‐line arrow in figure 2.1a suggests a broadly vectored trajectory from the start of the exposition to the EEC; the smaller dotted‐line arrow below it suggests a subordinate trajectory from the beginning of S to its own point of PAC‐closure at the EEC’ (p. 18).

As regards symbols, the diagrams themselves of course draw on mathematical graphing conventions (see in particular figures 2.1a and 2.1b on p. 17); all that is really missing is the use of Greek letters. The different categories of ‘medial caesura’ are allocated elaborate designations such as ‘V: PAC MC’; the different ‘spans’ of P, S, TR, C and the rest are designated by superscript integers (‘P¹’, ‘P²’ and so on); and within these spans, any smaller ‘modules’ are identified by decimalised superscript integers (‘P^1.1’, ‘P^1.2’ etc.). A variety of further symbols is employed for different types of large‐ and small‐scale function: ‘’ denotes ‘mergers’ or elisions, subscript letters are added to functional chord symbols (for example, ‘V_T’ distinguishes a tonicised dominant from one that is sounded but not tonicised, which is designated ‘V_A’), and so forth. The notation becomes particularly involved where concerto (Type 5) movements are concerned, as the additional ritornello‐solo aspect of the structure spawns extra colons and backwards slashes: an individual module within ‘P‐space’ in the opening orchestral ritornello is, for instance, identified as ‘R1:∖P^1.1’. When entire ‘action‐spaces’ are summarised, convoluted quasi‐mathematical formulae result. For example, the ‘recapitulatory rotation’ of the evidently deceptively approachable Finale of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C major, K. 309 (1777), merits the following near‐impenetrable sequence: ‘P^rf[S^1.4—(’) Episode S^1.2—] (’) S^1.1 S^1.3 S^1.4 RT! (’) [P^rf!! S^1.2!!](’) C [S^1.4!!]’ (p. 412).

As the Preface leads the reader to expect, scientific metaphor also governs the presentation of key concepts and the evaluation of major ‘generic markers’ within movements. In fact, the initial elucidation of the central idea of a hierarchy of generic defaults and deformations is defined in terms likely to appeal to the most hard‐core of computer enthusiasts:

For novice‐composers, one might wittily fantasize . . . something on the order of an aggressively complex ‘wizard’ help feature within a late‐eighteenth‐century musical computer application, prompting the still‐puzzled apprentice with a welter of numerous, successive dialog boxes of general information, tips, pre‐selected weighted options, and strong, generically normative suggestions as the act of composition proceeded. (p. 10)

As a result, the chapter on the medial caesura (pp. 23–50), for instance, exudes statistical propriety, establishing a four‐tier hierarchy of defaults on the basis of frequency of occurrence in the sample of ‘hundreds of individual movements’ and then defining the structural role of each type of medial caesura partly in percentage terms: ‘Our research suggests that the deployment of the I: HC MC is flexible, occurring typically within the 15–45 percent range’ (p. 37); ‘When selected, the V: HC MC option is typically placed from about 25 to 50 percent (more rarely, 60 percent)’ (p. 39); and so on.

This scientific orientation of Elements of Sonata Theory worries me, for it promises rather more than it delivers. To begin with, in a scientific ‘research report’ one would expect a full account of the sample, complete descriptive statistics and an explanation of sampling methodology. In this particular case, the reader could derive reassurance from confirmation that careful consideration had been given to the chronological, geographical and generic distribution in the selection of movements. Given Sonata Theory's emphasis on hierarchies of defaults, one would also expect at least some basic statistical analysis. An examination of modal frequency, standard deviation and regression, for example, would clearly add much valuable definition to the bare percentages quoted with regard to the deployment of different types of medial caesura. Unfortunately, readers are obliged to do the spadework for themselves. The sample can of course be reconstructed from the Index of Works (pp. 639–48). Altogether, 665 sonata movements are cited in the book.7 The sample is heavily weighted towards the period c. 1750–90. That is not necessarily a problem given the book's subtitle, but the small number of movements (59, or 8.8%) written by composers born after 1800 does not obviously imbue with authority the authors’ claim in the Preface that their theory provides a ‘foundation for considering works from the decades to come’ (p. vii); all the more so, since nearly all such pieces referred to are overtures or the first movements of symphonies and more than a quarter of them are by a single composer, specifically Brahms. Even amongst composers born before 1800, Mozart seems unduly prominent; in fact, his 228 movements constitute 34% of the overall total.

When one turns to the 87 actual musical examples drawn from sonata movements, the skewed nature of the sample becomes yet more troublesome. Fig. 1 breaks these down by composer and genre. Apart from a single overture, only four genres are represented (concerto, keyboard sonata, symphony and string quartet). Not one movement after Beethoven is actually accorded a musical example and the latest piece to be included is the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, Op. 68 (1808). A colossal 76% of the examples are taken from Mozart's works, 42% of which are concertos. Tellingly, more than a quarter (26%) come from just six Mozart pieces: Piano Concertos Nos. 9, K. 271 (1777), and 21, K. 467 (1785); the Piano Sonata in F major, K. 280 (1775); Symphonies Nos. 39, K. 543 (1788), and 40, K. 550 (1788); and the String Quartet in C major, K. 465 (1785).

The impression given by all of this is that Sonata Theory has been constructed mainly on the basis of a relatively restricted Mozartian corpus, an impression that is reinforced when one scrutinises pieces cited in the text but not dealt with in any detail. It is not, for instance, evident that the authors conducted independent analyses of any of the seventeen Clementi piano‐sonata movements to which they refer. All the analytical information supplied can be found in Leon Plantinga's 1977 monograph, which contains some implausible analytical interpretations.8 By way of an example, Fig. 2 summarises the structure of the Finale of Clementi's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2 (published 1802). This has a lengthy slow introduction adumbrating the core components of the primary material, shown in Exs. 1a and 1b. There follows a relatively uncontroversial ‘Allegro’ exposition with clear relative‐major secondary and closing areas (bars 45² and 63 respectively) prepared by a minor‐inflected medial caesura. The retention of minor colouring for the first bar of the secondary zone creates a slight overlap. The ensuing development eschews the main theme in favour of secondary and transitional material, concluding at bar 101 with the original medial caesura transposed to the dominant of G minor. At bar 103² the whole of the second theme is then restated in the submediant, concluding with an interrupted cadence, which at bar 125 initiates a transitional extension re‐establishing the home dominant. At this point (bar 140), there is an abridged version of the slow introduction followed by a lengthy ‘Presto’ coda (bar 153⁴) that is launched by a frenetic variant of the main theme. A convincing analysis of this highly individual movement would have to account for the fact that what Hepokoski and Darcy would term a ‘Type 2 sonata with P‐based Coda’ enters into dialogue with the ‘deformational’ categories of the ‘non‐tonic recapitulation’ and a variant of the ‘introduction‐coda’ frame. Plantinga overlooks all that, unfeasibly identifying the ‘Presto’ coda as the recapitulation.9 His interpretation ignores many core concerns of Sonata Theory – particularly in its failure to mark the ‘crux’ (the ‘moment of rejoining the events of the expositional pattern after once having departed from them’; see p. 240) – yet the authors seem simply to assume that Plantinga's analysis is valid and cite Clementi's movement in passing as an example of a piece in which a slow introduction returns before the recapitulation. In fact, Clementi's strategy seems much bolder: to apply Hepokoski's and Darcy's term, the restatement of the slow introduction ‘overwrites’ the tonic return of the primary material, to which it is motivically related.

Admittedly, the heavy concentration on Mozart's music would not matter if this composer's output broadly constituted both a microcosm of the classical repertoire and the central point of reference for later composers. But even a casual perusal of the wider repertoire suggests that in many key respects Mozart was atypical. Two areas given extensive treatment in Elements of Sonata Theory are the concerto and the minor mode. In terms of late‐eighteenth and early nineteenth‐century practice, crucial aspects of Mozart's concerto procedures are anomalous. For example, in the first movements of Mozart's piano concertos his default in the opening ritornello (‘R1’) is to state the secondary material in the tonic: only a single concerto (No. 11, K. 413, of 1782–3) has an R1 foreshadowing the soloist's non‐tonic secondary material, and the modulation is cancelled within ‘S‐space’. The common practice in the period around the turn of the nineteenth century and beyond was, however, to write a tonally mobile R1, a procedure found in five of John Field's seven piano concertos, five of Dussek's, six of Cramer's, two of Hummel's, two of Steibelt's, four by Moscheles, two by Ries, three by Beethoven, Chopin's No. 2, and many others.10 Similarly, Mozart's concertos appear not to have served as models for major early nineteenth‐century composers: Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 (1831) conducts an extended dialogue with Weber's First Piano Concerto (1810) and Konzertstück in F minor (1821), whilst Schumann's Piano Concerto (1845) derives much of its first‐movement sonata procedure and even thematic material from Field's Piano Concerto No. 7 (1832).11

The situation regarding the minor mode is analogous. Mozart's overwhelming preference is for a i–III exposition answered by a recapitulation in which the relative‐major secondary and closing material is recast in the tonic minor. This consistency of approach is, however, unusual. Haydn was much more varied in his minor‐mode practice, frequently deploying the major mode for various combinations of secondary and closing material in his recapitulations – the Finale of the Piano Trio No. 19 in G minor, Hob. 15/19 (c. 1794), even answers a i–III exposition with a recapitulation entirely in the major mode. Beethoven's minor‐mode procedures are also more pluralistic. Joseph Kerman has identified two principal ‘Beethovenian syndromes’: ‘the hankering of C minor for its parallel major and the tropism of other minor keys toward their minor dominants’.12 Moreover, Beethoven's Coriolan Overture in C minor, Op. 62 (1808), has a ‘three‐key exposition’ (described as a type of ‘trimodular block’ or ‘TMB’ in Elements of Sonata Theory) and a non‐tonic recapitulation (pp. 120 and 164), and his Egmont Overture in F minor, Op. 84 (1809–10), deploys what Hepokoski and Darcy describe as a deformational ‘non‐resolving recapitulation’ (p. 247).13 Kerman considers Beethoven's habits ‘abberrant according to the norms of the Classic period’, but Beethoven actually shares his predilection for i–v expositions with Clementi, who wrote a larger proportion of minor movements relative to his total sonata output than Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven, and who frequently composed three‐key expositions, as well as non‐tonic and non‐resolving recapitulations. In fact, in Clementi's solo keyboard music, his most common response to a i–III exposition is a non‐tonic recapitulation.14

In sum, Elements of Sonata Theory is above all a book about Mozart (and particularly his concertos), a fact which renders the authors’ claims of large‐scale historical and geographical applicability questionable. Given their sample, it is impossible for the reader to know what to make of broad statements such as the following: the ‘second‐ or third‐tier repertory – encompassing thousands of less ambitious and now largely forgotten works – is where, from the perspective of the five sonata types, numerous hard cases are likely to be found’ (p. 387). Perhaps a more focused agenda and title might have been more appropriate. Significantly, Caplin's Classical Form is more realistically subtitled A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and adheres closely to its brief. By succumbing to the (predominantly North American) institutional imperative for generalised theories that can be used as the basis for readily classifiable and controllable schools of thought, Hepokoski and Darcy actually seem to have blunted the impact of the valuable observations they have to make about a specific repertoire.

The quasi‐scientific vocabulary is equally off‐putting. Working in an environment dominated by mathematicians, physical scientists and engineers, I hear the words ‘rotation’ and ‘vector’ in a variety of contexts on almost a daily basis. A scientific definition of ‘rotation’ is turning in a plane through a given angle, a description that will hold in any dimension; a ‘vector’ is a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, denoted by a line drawn from its original to its final position.15 It is of course impossible to reconcile either of these definitions with Sonata Theory's EST. In that context, ‘rotation’ would appear merely to denote circular recurrence of a thematic pattern and the ‘vectored trajectory from the start of the exposition to the EEC’ seems to constitute little more than a move from an initial tonic to an emphatic cadence in a secondary key. The patience of readers is further tested when they are asked to conceptualise impossible linguistic compounds such as a ‘generic vector’. Consequently, when working through Elements of Sonata Theory one is constantly forced to scour the ‘Terms and Abbreviations’ section (pp. xxv–xxviii) and the nearest dictionary only to discover that much simpler and more suitable alternative terminology is available.

Readers might at least expect the system of symbols and abbreviations to be applied consistently, but even here there are problems. The criteria for allocating the initial integers to zonal labels appear to be reasonably clear, if not uncontestable: ‘P¹ will move on to P² only after a first PAC has been attained’ (p. 71). Unfortunately, inconsistencies soon emerge. In cases where, for example, ‘S‐space’ begins with music that ‘seems preparatory to a more decisive … module’, that music is designated as ‘S⁰’ even if there is no PAC between ‘S⁰’ and ‘S¹’. The situation is yet more confusing when an exposition has an ‘apparent double medial caesura’. In such instances, the standard labels are liable to be replaced by ‘TMB¹’, ‘TMB²’ and ‘TMB³’ (denoting the constituent units of a ‘trimodular block’) ‘even though in most cases the whole TMB covers only a single cadential span’ (p. 72). Highlighting the latter discrepancy is not mere pedantry, because the use of two systems of labelling implies that a standard exposition with one medial caesura is fundamentally different from an exposition incorporating a trimodular block.

Fig. 3 summarises Hepokoski's and Darcy's analysis of the first‐movement exposition of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3 of 1794–5 (pp. 172–5). Bars 25 to 26 are interpreted as a ‘I: HC medial caesura, with GP gap’. The ensuing ‘flawed’ minor‐mode cantabile theme (‘TMB¹’) soon begins to modulate sequentially and at bar 39 dissolves into transitional rhetoric (‘TMB²’). This leads to a ‘postmedial caesura, V: HC’ at bar 45 and to a ‘new, cantabile theme, now in the radiantly sunlit G major’ at bar 47 (‘TMB³’). In contrast, Tovey designates bars 27–76 as the ‘Second Group (or Transition and Second Group)’, neatly encapsulating the ambiguous status of bars 27–46 without having to invent new terminology.16 There is no real difference of opinion between the two readings: both consider the theme at bar 27 to affect second‐theme rhetoric but ultimately to prove ‘unsatisfactory’. Tovey's simple labelling however seems more convincingly to reflect the poietic context. In the late eighteenth‐century repertoire, medial caesuras are not restricted to sonata forms and occur in varying numbers within movements. Beethoven was presumably unaware that two centuries later an ex post facto theoretical investigation of the sonata‐form practice of his era would make major distinctions on the basis of the precise number of medial caesuras in a piece; nor does it seem likely that he would have thought his strategy in the expositions of the first movements of Op. 2 No. 3 and his next published sonata, Op. 7 in E (1797), to be essentially different, even if the former has two ‘MC‐effects’ and the latter only one.

At the smaller modular level, definitions are yet more imprecise. The criteria for distinguishing ‘P^1.1’ from ‘P^1.2’ and subsequent divisions are sometimes thematic and hence related to Caplin's ‘formal functions’: a pattern of ‘basic idea’ followed by a ‘contrasting idea’ may invoke the succession ‘P^1.1, P^1.2’. A bewildering variety of other units however receive similar treatment. The reader is actually informed that ‘the practice of decimal designators is no rigid system but merely a conceptual tool to be used by the individual analyst as he or she sees fit’ (p. 72). Once again, there is a mismatch between the substance and the packaging of Sonata Theory. Evidently, beneath the surface Hepokoski and Darcy have an affinity with ‘the style of eclectic analytical writing’, which they identify in the work of Tovey, Rosen and Kerman amongst others, and from which they ostensibly distance themselves.

The sense of frustration engendered by the book's non‐delivery of implied scientific rigour is magnified by the contradictory tendency, in some dimensions of its rhetorical strategy, towards uncomfortable colloquialism. To begin with, there are the verbal refrains reminiscent of ancient oral narrative traditions. Almost all references to Haydn are prefaced by the epithet ‘witty’, despite the fact that Daniel Chua has argued persuasively that clichéd conceptions of Haydn's wit have no genuine explanatory force with regard to the composer's music.17 (As a rule of thumb, whilst Sonata Theory seems to view Haydn as de facto witty, Mozart has to override a prominent default to exhibit wit; Beethoven is permitted to be witty only in limited circumstances.) The virtually automatic appending of ‘lights out’ to appearances of the words ‘minor mode’ is even more disconcerting, especially to those whose first language is not American English. And the strange talking musical instruments and sonata movements are the very stuff of dark fairytales, if not childhood nightmares. The solo exposition (‘S1’) in the first movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D, K. 218 (1775), is particularly disturbing, with the violin and orchestra suddenly striking up a conversation with Commendatore‐like overtones:

‘I'm willing to participate on the terms that you have proposed to me. Shall we continue?’ The orchestra responds with pure affirmation, welcoming the soloists into the game with a deal‐making handshake and opening the gateway to the more forward‐vectored TR that immediately follows: ‘Accepted! Now let's build a sonata. Onward!’ (p. 522)

Allied to all this is the authors’ frequent habit of reiterating straightforward concepts. Does someone capable of apprehending the quasi‐mathematical formula describing the Finale of Mozart's Sonata K. 309 quoted above really need to be told several times that in Mozart's concertos it is the norm for ‘S‐space’ to begin in the tonic in the opening ritornello? Whilst one can appreciate that it is difficult for a co‐authored book to maintain a consistency of tone, the sharp rhetorical fluctuations in Elements of Sonata Theory create a sense of confusion about generic identity and the book's intended readership.

‘Fundamental Axioms’

The problems surrounding the generic affiliations and much of the language of Elements of Sonata Theory have a direct bearing on the trio of central concepts deemed important enough to merit further elucidation in the appendices (pp. 611–21): the ‘genre sonata’; ‘rotation’; and ‘deformation’. The notion of treating sonata form as a genre rather than a ‘mere form’ is not new: it goes back at least to the work of Leo Treitler, for example his 1989 essay on the slow movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 39, K. 543.18 Nevertheless, unlike previous proponents of the idea, Hepokoski and Darcy do proffer a justification. They define genres as ‘elaborate constellations of norms and traditions’ that ‘transform over time and differ from place to place’ and contend that

musical genres (such as ‘sonata form’ or ‘the multimovement sonata’) are to be distinguished from mere forms insofar as they also carry an implicit social or ideological content. A schematic form becomes a genre when we also attend to its social and cultural ramifications – among which is its decisive position‐taking on a contested social field of cultural production. (p. 606)

Convenient though this approach is as a conceptual prop, it raises numerous questions. First, what about ‘constellations of norms and traditions’ that are not considered to be genres – how do we classify them? Second, what is the precise relationship between the ‘genre sonata’ and musical creations more usually deemed to be genres: symphony, concerto, sonata, mass and so on? Also, what is the significance of contextual differences between deployments of sonata forms in the first movements of symphonies, finales of string quartets, opera buffa ensembles and so forth? Moreover, if what dictates whether a particular piece of music should be viewed in generic rather than formal terms is primarily the inference of ‘social or ideological content’ by an ‘informed listener/analyst’, then surely any musical form can in fact be designated as a genre. Certainly, Hepokoski and Darcy do not elucidate why sonata‐form movements are generically essentially different from those in ternary form, for example. And if the prevailing view of form as trans‐generic is invalid, then why bother with the concept of musical form at all? The perceived advantages of viewing sonata form as a genre would appear to come at a considerable cost.

My doubts in this regard are exacerbated by the problematic notion that certain options are ‘generically unavailable’ at any point in history. Dealing with nineteenth‐century first movements, the developments of which are prefaced by a return to the primary theme in the tonic, the authors caution that these should not be mistaken for a Type 4 design (sonata‐rondo), because ‘Type 4 sonatas are historically and generically unavailable for first movements’ (p. 351). This immediately raises further awkward questions: how is a composer supposed know that a particular design is generically prohibited at a given time; what are the historical processes that ultimately allow generic experimentation to take place; and why should a sonata's position within a multi‐movement work supersede all parameters of its internal organisation?

Still more troubling is the fact that Sonata Theory is entirely out of kilter with modern genre theory as expounded, for instance, in John Frow's excellent 2006 monograph on the topic.19 The prevailing opinion is that genre arises from the interaction of a diversity of dimensions – formal structure, thematic structure, mode of presentation, rhetorical function, and so on – and hence that generic affiliations are identified above all through the ‘intertwined effects of form and framing’.20 This surely means that it is of fundamental import whether a sonata form occurs in the first movement of a symphony or the Kyrie of a mass. Furthermore, it is difficult to reconcile Hepokoski's and Darcy's concept of generic non‐availability with the modern literary view that texts ‘use or perform the genres by which they are shaped’ and that the relationship between text and genre ‘is one of productive elaboration rather than of derivation or determination’.21 In these terms, every text or piece of music is to an extent sui generis; pace Hepokoski's recent analysis of The Ruins of Athens, Op. 113 (1811), it is perfectly possible that Beethoven might experiment at this time with a ternary instead of a sonata‐form schema for an overture.22

The ‘foundational axiom’ of ‘rotation’ is advocated with particular tenacity. As noted above, ‘rotation’ refers to recycling of the thematic pattern established in the exposition. The contention is that this ‘referential layout’ acts as a template for not only the recapitulation but also the development and in many instances even the coda. To account for the fact that relatively few developments literally cycle through the expositional materials in the original order, a plethora of modifications is devised: ‘developmental half‐rotations, truncated rotations, rotations with episodic substitutes “writing over” some of the expected individual elements, rotation with newly included interpolations, internal digressions from the governing rotational thread, occasional reorderings of the modules, and the like’ (p. 613). Where a secondary area begins with a variant of the primary theme (common in Haydn), the exposition is also deemed to consist of two ‘subrotations’ (p. 136). In contrast to the idea of sonata form as genre, the notion of rotation as ‘an archetypal principle of musical structure’ is asserted without any real explanation other than the drawing of unconvincing analogies with clocks, spirals, the daily and yearly cycles and suchlike. Signing up to the rotational way of thinking is thus essentially an act of quasi‐religious faith, as is implied by the authors’ at times highly metaphysical rhetoric: ‘Rotational procedures are grounded in a dialectic of persistent loss (the permanent death of each instant as it lapses into the next) and the impulse to seek a temporal “return to the origin”, a cyclical renewal and rebeginning’ (p. 611).

The analytical consequences of accepting the rotational principle as non‐negotiable are far‐reaching. To begin with, one has to abandon the widely disseminated concepts of ‘mirror’, ‘reversed’ and ‘partly reversed’ recapitulations endorsed by writers from Schumann to Rosen, Timothy Jackson and beyond.23 Hepokoski and Darcy prefer to view movements exhibiting such characteristics as Type 2 sonatas with codas or ‘coda‐rhetoric interpolations’ based on primary material (see pp. 232, 344, 354, 365–9 and 382–3). Similarly, Sonata Theory does not accommodate the standard interpretation of the ABACB¹A variant of the sonata rondo (Type 4) that is favoured by Mozart, for instance, as an incomplete realisation (with the third A omitted) of a full ABACAB¹A design. Instead, the theory decrees that the ABACB¹A format is a ‘tri‐rotational’, ‘Expanded Type 1 Sonata‐Rondo Mixture’ in which the second (recapitulatory) rotation features a ‘pronounced internal expansion’ or ‘billowing out’ (that is, the C section) between A and the transitional link into B¹ (see pp. 409–12). It is apparently not a problem that this line of analytical interpretation can produce very lopsided proportions (the Finale of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4, Op. 58 of 1804–7 has a second rotation spanning nearly half the movement, for instance). As regards concertos, the workings of Type 5 movements can at times be so convoluted that the authors are forced to invent the ‘rotationally neutral slot’: an ‘out‐of‐order’ module that is deemed to be ‘inert’ and thus to lie outside the main rotational sphere – a sort of analytical joker to be played in times of exegetic extremis (see, for example, pp. 525 and 558).

Attentive reading of Elements of Sonata Theory uncovers a significant degree of insecurity about the rotational metaphor. Non‐rotational approaches are repeatedly rejected in surprisingly hard‐line language: the ‘reverse recapitulation’ is described in particularly aggressive terms as a ‘fallacy’ or ‘misjudgement’ and non‐believers are roundly chastised: ‘Here the primacy of the rotational principle – obvious enough for those who choose to observe it – trumps traditional, erroneous terminology’ (p. 354). (As a general rule, in this book the more debatable a theoretical concept is, the more strident is its linguistic formulation.) In addition, a number of writers regarded with circumspection or even suspicion elsewhere in the text are enlisted to endorse rotation. Rosen is cited in support of the notion of the development as a second rotation (pp. 612–13) of the ‘referential layout’. Reicha and Czerny are also alleged to describe rondos in rotational terms (pp. 390–2), although they are censured elsewhere for failing to acknowledge the Type 2 sonata format (p. 365).24

There would indeed appear to be much about which Hepokoski and Darcy need to be defensive. As is argued above, the term ‘rotation’ itself is not really appropriate in this one‐dimensional context. A more accurate scientific metaphor might be ‘periodicity’, and periodicity can undergo permutation, which suggests that the re‐arrangement of material proposed by the ‘reverse recapitulation’ concept is scarcely the anathema that the authors assert it to be. Nor is it clear why a development rotation should be equated with an exposition rotation, even where the former works the expositional material in precisely the same order. This is because the exposition's succession of ‘tight‐knit’ and ‘loose‐knit’ units (Caplin's terms) as well as its patterns of textural and tonal stability and instability are entirely different from those in a development. The defining characteristic of developments is in fact contrast, normally in the form of looser organisation dominated by fragmentation and sequential progression. This led A. B. Marx to apply his general Ruhe‐Bewegung‐Ruhe model to sonata form, assigning the Bewegung function to the development;25 Caplin too describes the development as ‘a higher‐level analogue to the contrasting middle section in a small ternary form’.26 In short, the propositions that in developments thematic order takes precedence and that ‘nonrotational events’ are apprehended as ‘writing over a more normatively rotational option’ are entirely contentious.

A further problem is that the analytical gymnastics required to preserve rotational rectitude often result in readings of specific pieces that are convoluted to the point of being counter‐intuitive. An obvious case in point is the first movement of Mozart's much‐analysed Piano Sonata in D, K. 311 (1777). The overwhelming majority of commentators classify this movement as a Type 3 sonata with a ‘reverse recapitulation’ of some sort; Hepokoski's and Darcy's analysis – which, typically for this book, is scattered across numerous and disparate sections (see in particular pp. 292, 377 and 385) – deems it to be a complex deformation of the Type 2 referential layout. The exposition is relatively straightforward, with clearly demarcated zonal boundaries. The complications begin after the double bar. Fig. 4 offers a skeletal summary of the second part of the movement. The development avoids the main theme altogether: it begins by working the gesture that closed the exposition (‘C²’) and then in bars 58–65 (equivalent to bars 28–35 in the exposition) reiterates the latter stages of the second span of the subordinate thematic complex in the subdominant. A sequential passage loosely based on bars 10³–12 (which exhibit transitional rhetoric) then leads to the ‘crux’, which commences in bar 75 with the untransposed ‘dominant lock’ of the original ‘I: HC’ medial caesura (bars 13–16), complete with conventional ‘triple‐hammer‐blow’ effect. What follows is not the main theme but a modified and minimally expanded tonic return of the secondary material (bars 78⁴–98) partly clouded by modal mixture (bars 83–86). The concluding fourteen bars, shown in Ex. 2, are described by Hepokoski and Darcy thus: ‘we regard the return of the incipit (only) of P in m. 99 to be a passage of coda‐rhetoric interpolation lasting until m. 109, when it is elided with the onset of C¹. In this case the CRI is wedged between S‐space – with the ESC at m. 99 – and the beginning of C‐space’ (p. 292).

In order to persevere with a Type 2 ‘bi‐rotational’ interpretation of the first movement of K. 311, one therefore has to contend that the start of the second rotation is ‘overwritten’ by a development that avoids P and has a startlingly deformational reverse‐order (C–S–TR) thematic sequence, and that the emphatic return of the main theme at bar 99 is essentially a mere digression within that elusive second rotation. The second of these propositions seems to be a simple case of the tail wagging the dog: surely the original four‐bar closing gesture is best seen as an appendage to an expanded version of the first theme? There are in fact many similarly problematic instances in the repertoire. The Finale of Clementi's Piano Sonata in G minor, Op. 50 No. 3, ‘Didone abbandonata’ (published 1821), is a clear example: an orthodox rotational reading of the closing stages of this movement would presumably dictate that the nineteen bars (bars 403–421) before the brief final, cadential C module are ‘coda‐rhetoric interpolation’ (see p. 288 for an unambiguous general pronouncement to this effect), whereas all other structural parameters indicate that a coda beginning in bar 403 concludes with a short end‐rhyme recalling the close of the exposition in the tonic. In sum, a strict rotational reading of the first movement of Mozart's K. 311 is essentially non‐congruent with the movement's rhetorical thrust. Of course, Hepokoski and Darcy are aware of the large‐scale problem here, but their explanation does little to reassure the sceptical: ‘once … audibly “thrown away” as an option, a non‐normative Type 2 sonata deformation could apparently be recuperated by simple fiat’ (p. 376).

All this is not to claim that foregrounding thematic over tonal concerns cannot be analytically productive in some cases. Such an approach sheds valuable light when, for example, a recapitulation appears to begin in a non‐tonic key. The closing stages of the development in the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 10 No. 2 in F major (1796–7), prepare the dominant of the relative minor and the opening theme begins at bar 118 in the submediant major. The whole of the opening thematic gesture is heard in D major, after which a ‘distorted and expanded’ version of the initial material (bars 131–136) moves to the dominant of F major. Beethoven then proceeds with the second module of the primary material in the tonic. Hepokoski and Darcy are persuasive in arguing that in this instance ‘it is preferable to conclude that the recapitulation itself begins in VI, m. 118, and self‐corrects en route’ (pp. 272–5). Similarly convincing conclusions might be reached about the recapitulations of eight Clementi major‐mode movements, which – whilst retaining the essential rhetorical structure of their original expositions – begin by reiterating the main unit of the primary thematic complex in a non‐tonic key and then modulate before resuming in the tonic where they left off.27 Nevertheless, in the main Elements of Sonata Theory seems concerned with the fixed, unvarying aspects of repetition to such an extent that a core feature of the Classical Style, namely modified repetition's potential for dynamic growth, is disappointingly neglected.

Of the three ‘fundamental axioms’ I have singled out for comment, deformation has unquestionably already occasioned the largest volume of debate.28 As Joseph Straus has observed, the very word ‘deformation’ carries unfortunate connotations of damage and disability that are not dispelled by Hepokoski's and Darcy's lengthy defence in Appendix 1 (pp. 614–21), a mini‐essay presumably designed largely to counter Straus's critique.29 Terminological nuances aside, the basic definition of ‘deformation’ as a rejection of ‘all normative default options’ (p. 11) seems straightforward enough, but one does not need to go much further to run into difficulties. Since defaults are viewed hierarchically, the distinction between a default and a deformation lies on a continuum; unfortunately, however, there is no clear steer as to how uncommon a procedure has to be for it to become a deformation. For example, Beethoven appears to be permitted three defaults for his subordinate key in minor‐mode sonata movements – III, v and VI in that order – but when he deploys the dominant underpinning a medial caesura in first inversion rather than root position he is immediately in deformational territory, despite the fact that the precise inversion of the chord might very well escape detection by a listener or even an analyst (see the comments about Beethoven's Coriolan Overture on p. 316). Altogether, decisions as to which procedures qualify as defaults and which constitute deformations seem to be made on an ad hoc basis. Moreover, as Straus points out, in spite of Sonata Theory's ostensibly dialogical formulation, the actual idea of a hierarchy of defaults means that the theory is underpinned by a conformational mentality, because individual movements are viewed as more or less normative in relation to a ‘generic’ layout that is to all intents and purposes a tectonic scheme.30 It is thus hard to accept that the concept of deformation supersedes Bonds's conformational‐generative opposition.

As regards the nineteenth century, the notion of deformation creates two further problems. First, it accrues additional complications through the increasingly important extra dimension of a dialogue between compositional practice and theory, represented principally by the Formenlehre tradition. Since the various theoretical formulations of sonata procedure in texts by Reicha, Marx, Czerny, Richter et al are in key respects incompatible, it is not possible to identify a composite nineteenth‐century model that can be used as a point of dialogic reference.31 Second, the post‐Beethovenian repertoire very rapidly becomes resistant to analysis in terms of Sonata Theory's ‘generic norms’. As Julian Horton and I have argued elsewhere, there is scarcely a single Mendelssohn sonata‐form movement written after 1824 that does not contravene Sonata Theory's ‘generic layout’.32 Also, the number of what Elements of Sonata Theory classifies as ‘failed’ expositions (that is, those that do not reach a satisfactory ESC) increases exponentially after the death of Beethoven (a fact that is alluded to briefly but understated on p. 177). The question therefore arises: why apply a model distinguishing between an ‘ideal type’ and divergence in practice to a repertoire in which deviations overwhelmingly predominate?

Hepokoski and Darcy present a possible answer to all the above through their assertion that their ‘generic layout’ is primarily a ‘heuristic’ tool and consequently ahistorical; in their own words, ‘what one chooses to call a sonata type or a sonata form depends on the interpretive purposes one has in mind for doing so’ (p. 343). But their concept of the ‘genre sonata’ as a ‘regulative idea guiding analytical interpretation’ (p. 343) is difficult to reconcile with their dialogical approach to form, for it would appear to lead to the insupportable conclusion that eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century composers are entering into a dialogue with ‘generic norms’ devised as heuristic tools in the late twentieth century.

Sonata Categories

The authors’ preoccupation with ‘rotation’ has major implications for their basic taxonomy of sonata types: indeed, on the basis of the doubts just raised about this concept it is arguable that two sonata categories might be dispensed with altogether. The odd‐numbered categories – the ‘sonata without development’, the standard format with development, and the sonata‐ritornello hybrid employed in concertos – are scarcely likely to trigger dissent. (Naturally, there are the usual issues connected to making distinctions at the margins, for instance between a Type 1 movement with a more than usually substantial link between exposition and recapitulation and a Type 3 movement with a relatively short development, but such potential ambiguities are duly acknowledged; see pp. 344 and 386–7.) But the even‐numbered types – the so‐called ‘binary’ or ‘polythematic’ sonata layout (Type 2) and the sonata rondo (Type 4) – are more problematic. The former is described as follows (p. 354): ‘Type 2 sonatas do not have recapitulations at all, in the strict sense of the term. Instead, their second rotations have developmental spaces (P–TR or, sometimes, their episodic substitutes) grafted onto tonal resolutions (S–C)’. There are two basic Type 2 strategies, which might provisionally be labelled ‘Type 2a’ and ‘Type 2b’. The first of these is the straightforward pattern, in which the thematic correspondence between the form's two parts usually begins midway through the transitional material and the movement concludes with the secondary and closing material only in the tonic. Type 2b is the more elaborate and theoretically controversial ‘mirror’ or ‘reversed‐recapitulation’ format, whereby the latter stages of the second part begin by restating the secondary theme in the tonic, but then interpolate primary material in the tonic either before or after the closing material.

A variety of opinions about these models is expressed in the literature. James Webster, for example, proposes in his 2001 New Grove article on ‘Sonata Form’ that neither can be classified as a genuine sonata structure:

The recapitulation almost always enters unambiguously with the ‘simultaneous return’ of the opening theme in the tonic … . If the main theme never returns, or if the return to the tonic is delayed until the second group, the movement is in one or another version of rounded binary form. In the pure type, the first group never returns … or it may follow the second group, producing ‘mirror’ form.33

Charles Rosen would seem to agree with Webster in viewing Type 2a as a variant of binary form, but he diverges in endorsing ostensibly the classification of the Type 2b option as a sonata form with reversed recapitulation.34 Eugene Wolf's article on ‘Sonata Form’ in the 2003 edition of the Harvard Dictionary of Music sits on the fence, stating that opinion is divided as to whether types 2a and 2b are ‘polythematic’ binary and ‘mirror’ forms or sonata variants.35

Hepokoski's and Darcy's account of the history of Type 2 (pp. 355–69) quickly reveals the cause of the disagreements. They identify as Type 2's principal ‘historical antecedents’ two binary‐form blueprints that are plentiful amongst, for instance, Scarlatti's keyboard sonatas: ‘balanced’ binary, which is characterised by an extended end‐rhyme between the two parts; and what some term ‘parallel’ binary, ‘in which the second part tracks the melodic material presented in the first, while reversing its original tonic/nontonic motion’ (p. 355). A few proto‐sonata movements written in the 1730s and 1740s by C. P. E. Bach, Sammartini and others favour formats in which a return to the tonic coincides with secondary material. Type 2 then became a moderately popular, if not frequent, choice for sonata movements written in the middle of the eighteenth century (J. C. Bach and Johann Stamitz were particular exponents). As a result, a number of early Haydn and Mozart works contain various versions of the basic plan. But because, after 1770 (arguably 1765), ‘composers grew to favour the perhaps more dramatic Type 3 structures (with full recapitulations), the Type 2 option was pushed to the margins’ (p. 363). Also, the dwindling number of Type 2 movements increasingly favoured the Type 2b format (with ‘P‐based coda’) over Type 2a. Still, they maintain that ‘within historically significant composition it [Type 2] never disappeared entirely’ (p. 363).

In short, Hepokoski and Darcy accept the assertions of Webster, Rosen and others that Type 2a in particular is essentially restricted to the period preceding Rosen's ‘stylistic revolution of the 1770s’,36 but they object to the notion that Type 2's short existence, strictly limited usage and swift demise in any way constitute ‘an evolutionary process’ in which Type 2 was superseded by the normative Type 3. According to their fundamentally ahistorical vision of this topic, Type 2 and Type 3 are ‘viable’ sonata alternatives. This stance is odd, because it directly contradicts their quasi‐evolutionary approach to other issues. A notable example of this is their statement that in the period c. 1740–70 many expositions ‘almost’ achieve a two‐part structure with a medial caesura but not quite, an assertion that is backed up by the most overtly biological of metaphors: ‘One thinks of cell division – mitosis: in metaphase and anaphase the two cells have begun to divide but have not fully succeeded in doing so’ (p. 63).

A closer investigation of Mozart's involvement with the Type 2 category poses an awkward problem. Hepokoski and Darcy identify sixteen Type 2 movements by Mozart written up to and including the first movement of K. 311 (1777), examined above.37 Many of the early ones are Type 2a, but from the first movement of the Symphony No. 20, K. 133 (1772), onwards, Mozart overwhelmingly prefers the Type 2b model. After K. 311, Type 2 movements are very rare indeed. The authors cite the Finale of Eine kleine Nachtmusik, K. 525 (1787), as a late example, but this movement is of rather a different cast to the others and is actually entitled ‘Rondo’. If one tries to view it as a Type 2 sonata, there is an initial problem that in the ‘exposition’ the opening theme returns in the dominant as part of the secondary material (bar 32). Also, the ‘development’ consists of a reiteration of the main theme and the first four bars of its continuation (bars 58–68) in the flattened submediant followed by transitional material that prepares a return of the tonic in conjunction with the secondary theme (bar 83). As far as the ‘tonal resolution’ is concerned, the return of primary material in the tonic at bar 99 is a further complication and there is even a coda based on the main theme (bar 131). As a result, any interpretation of this movement as a deformation of the Type 2 model is clearly tendentious and so Mozart's compositional career at least indicates that the always precarious Type 2 sonata was quickly subsumed by the all‐conquering Type 3.

The same is true of Mozart's contemporary Clementi: the greater majority of his Type 2a movements are also confined to his early career.38 Moreover, the few later potential Type 2b pieces create terminological dilemmas for Sonata Theory, because they deploy a ‘tonal resolution’ section that either has additional ‘rotational’ properties or does not begin in the tonic. The former is exemplified by the first movement of his Piano Sonata in G major, Op. 37 No. 2 (published 1798), whose secondary and closing areas in the exposition begin with variants of the primary theme, but whose recapitulation reverses the primary and secondary material. Sonata Theory is an awkwardly blunt instrument with which to approach a movement like this: on one level there is a ‘tonal return’ rather than a standard recapitulation, but there is also a strong ‘rotational’ element because S and P are so similar. In such cases, positing that thematic reversal occurs within an overall Type 3 strategy seems more convincing. The latter problem is highlighted above all by the Finale of the Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2, which is summarised in Fig. 2 above. Because of the development's avoidance of the main theme, Sonata Theory would view this as a ‘Type 3 Type 2’ conversion: a movement, the developmental content of which implies a Type 3 structure, but which recuperates ‘by simple fiat’ the Type 2 model in the closing stages (see pp. 376–8). As was observed above, however, when the crux is reached at bar 101 the end of the transition and the secondary material are reiterated in the submediant, not the tonic major. (It is a common feature in the minor mode for Clementi to recapitulate at least some of his secondary material in the submediant major.)39 The tonic minor is not reasserted until the return of the slow introduction at bar 140, which means that bar 101 cannot be a ‘tonal resolution’ despite the clear return of expositional rhetoric.

It might be tempting to classify this movement as an abstruse, one‐off deformation of the Type 2b ground plan, but in fact it exemplifies a teleological strategy combining reordering of themes with a reversal of expositional tonal ‘trajectory’ that resurfaces in a number of nineteenth‐century works, including the Finale of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 in E major (1881–3), the first movement of Anton Rubinstein's Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor (1864; revised 1872) and Schubert ‘s much‐debated Quartettsatz in C minor (1820).40 The Bruckner movement unfolds a reversed C–S–P–coda thematic plan over a mobile tonal progression that starts in B minor (bar 191) and defers consolidation of the tonic until the start of the coda (bar 315). The movements by Rubinstein and Schubert both have a partly reversed S–C–P thematic pattern underpinned respectively by a VI–VI–i and a V of III–III–I–i tonal scheme.

If the Type 2 category is to be maintained, then it is worth devising a term other than ‘tonal resolution’ for the recapitulatory space and perhaps isolating the substantial group of movements with reversed expositional tonal ‘trajectory’ as another subcategory (Type 2c). But close scrutiny of the nineteenth‐century repertoire alleged to keep alive the Type 2 model by deformation casts great doubt on the category's validity. Fig. 5 lists the sixteen nineteenth‐century pieces that Hepokoski and Darcy identify as a ‘roster of Type 2s and their (often strikingly original) variants’ (p. 364). There are other pieces that might be added to the catalogue: the Finale of Spohr's Double String Quartet in D minor, Op. 65 (1823) and the first movements of Spohr's Octet in E major, Op. 32 (1814), Mendelssohn's Athalia Overture (1845), Chopin's Cello Sonata in G minor (1845–6), Rubinstein's Piano Concerto No. 4 and Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 in E minor, ‘From My Life’ (1876), to name but half a dozen. Some of the pieces listed in Fig. 5 appear not to be in sonata form at all, most saliently the first movement of Schubert's early String Quartet, D. 74, which is better interpreted as a large‐scale ‘parallel’ binary in which the second part begins with restatement of P in the dominant. Others are more satisfactorily analysed as Type 3 variants elsewhere in the literature. For instance, Robert Pascall persuasively classifies the Finale of Brahms's String Quartet, Op. 51 No. 1, as one of nine Brahms movements exhibiting a structure he terms ‘sonata form with conflated response’, comprising a development interpolated after the recapitulation has begun (at bar 94 in this case).41 (The ‘Tragic’ Overture arguably relates to this model, even though it is not amongst Pascall's nine pieces.) Also, the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 is analysed convincingly by Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter as having a non‐tonic recapitulation beginning in D minor with a truncated triple‐forte statement of the main theme in bar 284.42 Oddly, Hepokoski and Darcy derive their view that the return of the second theme in D minor at bar 295 constitutes the start of the recapitulation from Jackson, even though the Aldwell/Schachter reading more closely resembles Hepokoski's and Darcy's approach to other movements, for instance the first movement of Beethoven's Op. 10 No. 2.43 They may have been influenced in their thinking by the dominant pedal underpinning the return of Tchaikovsky's main theme at bar 284, although at one point they do suggest that a theme occurring over a dominant pedal ‘or some other tension‐producing device’ constitutes ‘the deformation of a generic norm’ (p. 129; see also p. 143). In fact, in the wake of the startling reiterated dominant pedal that underscores the moment of recapitulation in the first movement of Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, Op. 57 (1804–5), this procedure became a higher‐level ‘default’ in statistical terms during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, especially in the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann.44

A number of the pieces in Fig. 5 do ostensibly begin their recapitulatory spaces with secondary material, but there is invariably an overriding element of dialogue with the Type 3 model. An obvious case in point is the first movement of Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 3. Here Chopin saturates the final stages of the development (bars 132–134) with voice‐leading features of the main theme, before the crux at bar 135 (corresponding to bar 17 in the exposition); the residues of the primary theme at this juncture thus clearly signify its absence from the recapitulatory section proper. The first movement of Chopin's Cello Sonata deploys a similar strategy. The notion of a structure‐defining dialogue with Type 3 is equally pertinent to those pieces with recapitulatory spaces involving reversed or partly reversed thematic orders and goal‐directed tonal strategies: Schubert's Quartettsatz; Mendelsssohn's Athalia Overture; the first movement of Rubinstein's Piano Concerto No. 4; the Finale of Bruckner's Symphony No. 7; Liszt's Les préludes; and others. The first movement of Smetana's String Quartet No. 1 is also probably best interpreted in such terms: the return of the secondary material in E major (bar 181) is unstable, having been prepared by the dominant of F major, and it is only with the return of the opening material (bar 226) that the tonic (E minor) is fully consolidated. Moreover, the Type 2 model is to all intents and purposes irrelevant as far as the Finale of Schumann's Symphony No. 4 is concerned. All four movements of this symphony are characterised by structural incompleteness and the first movement has no genuine recapitulation. Hence there is a strong element of ‘double‐function’ or ‘two‐dimensional’ form (‘multi‐movement form within a single movement’), in which the Finale acts as a large‐scale recapitulation to the first movement.45 Once again, dialogue with the Type 3 model is paramount, this time at the level of the whole work. The ‘double‐function’ concept is of course also relevant in the case of Liszt's Les préludes.46

I could continue evaluating the pieces in Fig. 5, but it should by now be clear that it is difficult to identify a single work in the nineteenth‐century repertoire where a Type 2‐orientated reading is richer and more compelling than a Type 3‐based one. Indeed, in all of these cases, a Type 2 interpretation seems to marginalise much that is of central importance. Hepokoski and Darcy do preface their ‘roster’ of posited nineteenth‐century Type 2s with a warning: ‘none of the following works should be approached apart from a close awareness of how the Type 2 sonata was transformed and subjected to deformations decade by decade’ (pp. 363–4). Nevertheless, we are once again faced with a situation where the entire nineteenth‐century corpus of sonata movements is alleged to contain a smattering of deformations of a norm that is actually absent. Indeed, as the authors note with some disapproval, nineteenth‐century theorists ignored Type 2 altogether; and Schumann actually interpreted the first movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (1830) as ‘a wide‐arching whole’, that is to say, a sonata form with a ‘reversed’ recapitulation (see pp. 365 and 383).47 Tellingly, there is a whiff of the modern conspiracy theory to the authors’ concluding historical summary of the Type 2 sonata:

Type 2 formats existed only under the radar of theoretical notice. Since they were overlooked as viable late‐eighteenth‐ and even nineteenth‐century options among the most influential theorists, they were largely absent, one presumes, from discussions of sonata form carried out within the emerging nineteenth‐century academic institution of art music: universities, conservatories, critics, commentators, performers, theorists, historians, and so on. The Type 2 tradition was kept alive – in memory and in aggressively original adaptations – primarily as a little‐used, alternative sonata practice among composers themselves. (p. 365)

The more pragmatic alternative is that nineteenth‐century theorists neglected the Type 2 model simply because it was a historical curiosity at the time they were writing. Perhaps, then, we should apply Occam's razor to sonata categorisation and conclude that the so‐called Type 2 sonata was one of the casualties of the ‘stylistic revolution of the 1770s’. Furthermore, if one takes the logical step of accepting that Schumann (who after all was a composer and a critic and was presumably unencumbered by rotational fixations) might have been reflecting the Zeitgeist in describing an ‘arch’ form, the ‘reverse’ recapitulation may legitimately be regarded as a potentially significant Type 3 subcategory, at least as far as the nineteenth century is concerned.

Hepokoski's and Darcy's Type 4, the sonata rondo, is on the face of it more puzzling than their Type 2. The prevailing view over the last two centuries has been that sonata form and rondo are distinct formal categories. Even when rondos adopt aspects of sonata rhetoric, the particular structural emphasis accorded to returns of the ‘tight‐knit’ refrain (often a small ternary, rounded binary or small binary structure) is deemed to be the defining rondo characteristic. In contrast, Hepokoski and Darcy give priority to the idea of circular return itself, espousing the view that rondo and sonata form are fundamentally connected through ‘dialogue with the rotational principle’ (p. 390). Thus they view, for example, the commonly used ‘five‐part rondo’ format as comprising three rotations: ‘AB–AC–A’ (p. 399). They promote the ‘quadri‐rotational’ sonata rondo to the status of a full subcategory of sonata form, because its first rotation is ‘explicitly structured as the exposition of a sonata’ (p. 391) and because its third rotation functions like a recapitulation, with the material originally stated in a non‐tonic key transposed to the tonic. There are two major differences between the ‘expositional rotation’ of a sonata rondo and the exposition of a sonata form: the former is never repeated and it concludes with a retransition preparing the return of the refrain. What happens in the second rotation is less significant – this may be based on ‘expositional’ material or it may be episodic. The ‘normative Type 3 sonata‐rondo mixture’ (conventionally ABACAB¹A coda) is summarised as follows (p. 405):

Rotation 1: P^ref TR ’ S / C RT (EEC in V or III)

Rotation 2: P^ref development or episode RT

Rotation 3: P^ref TR ’ S / C RT (ESC in I or i)

Rotation 4: P^ref+ optional coda

The closely related ‘symmetrical seven‐part rondo’ (AB–AC–AB¹–A) does not ‘rise fully to the level of the “sonata‐rondo” in the strictest sense’ (p. 404): even though B is in the dominant and B¹ in the tonic, this pattern lacks a recognisable expositional transition complete with medial caesura between A and B. Ultimately, then, in the world of Sonata Theory the difference between a rondo and a sonata rondo is potentially as small as the presence or absence of a couple of transitional passages.

The authors claim that their rotational approach finds ‘support in the writings of two early‐nineteenth‐century theorists, Anton Reicha and Carl Czerny’ (p. 390), who divide rondos respectively into ‘sections’ and ‘periods’ according to returns of the refrain. They go on to contend that the insightful rotational view ‘was apparently lost in the middle of the nineteenth century, perhaps as a result of A. B. Marx's evolutionary view concerning his five rondo types as progressive steps of the “spirit”, striving ultimately to attain the greater cohesiveness and “ternary” symmetry proved by sonata form’ (p. 392). The stance taken by Marx is asserted to have been ‘perpetuated during the production of twentieth‐century Formenlehre [sic]’. Once again, the implication is that Hepokoski and Darcy have unearthed a hidden historical secret. Their presentation of nineteenth‐century theorists’ ideas is, however, rather misleading. It is true, for instance, that in his chapter on the ‘Rondo or Finale’ in the School of Practical Composition Czerny describes two main rondo layouts consisting respectively of three and four ‘principal periods’ with optional coda: A(TR)B(RT)–AC(TR)–A and A(TR)B(RT)–AC(RT)–A(TR)B(RT)–A (in which the first B is in the dominant and the second in the tonic).48 But he expresses the clear opinion that there is ‘a palpable difference’ between the characters of the main themes of sonatas and of rondos and that there is ‘a sensible difference’ in the ‘construction’ of the two types of movement;49 and indeed, his essentially two‐part conception of sonata form is remarkably free of rotational overtones.50 Evidently, the foregrounding of cyclical thematic return is for Czerny the salient property of the rondo but not the sonata.51

Marx is also concerned with what distinguishes a sonata from a rondo. His essay ‘Die Form in der Musik’ (1856) regards the crucial distinction as lying not in a process of evolution, but rather in a fundamental difference of structural procedure. He observes that ‘we cannot fail to recognize a certain lightness (if not to say looseness) in their character. They allow the main Satz to fall away, only in order to bring it back again’. For Marx, in the sonata rondo, ‘the second subsidiary Satz’ (equivalent to Sonata Theory's second rotation) remains to an extent ‘foreign … no matter how happy an invention it may be and how suited to the rest [of the form]’.52 In contrast, sonata form gains ‘a higher unity’ from the greater inter‐connectedness of the second part with the first and third. He expounds further on this position in Volume 3 of Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch‐theoretisch (1845).53 The distinguishing feature of the rondo is ‘the motion‐oriented alternation of thematic utterance (Satz) and transitional passage (Gang)’. Sonata form ‘gives up the foreign element (the second subsidiary Satz)’, replacing it with a second part that is ‘unified’ with the first and ‘made from the same content’. Also, whereas ‘in the rondo forms the main theme especially served as a stationary touchpoint of the whole’, sonata form is not ‘satisfied to bring back such a Satz as if it were a dead possession, it enlivens it instead, lets it undergo variation and be repeated in different manners and with different destinations: it transforms the Satz into an Other, which is nonetheless recognized as the offspring of the first Satz and which stands in for it’. Furthermore, as observed above, the second part ‘manifests itself primarily as the locus of variety and motion … therefore the underlying pattern of sonata form is Ruhe‐Bewegung‐Ruhe’.54 Marx was clearly partly influenced in his thinking by Beethoven's labelling of his finales. In particular, in his piano sonatas Beethoven reserves the ‘Rondo’ label for sonata‐rondo formats where there is no clear demarcation of ‘S‐space’ and ESC, and/or there is a central episode instead of a development.55

Evidently, Marx's position is considerably more intricate than Hepokoski and Darcy suggest. This is not to claim that Marx has all the answers: for example, he apparently fails to account for the small number of development sections, such as that of the Finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 2 No. 1 (1793–5), which incorporate a substantial amount of new material.56 Nevertheless, his conviction that there is a higher‐order difference between a rondo and a sonata form involving much more than the presence of transitional sections is worth pursuing. Caplin does precisely this in Classical Form, proposing a number of elements that distinguish the sonata rondo from the sonata proper.57 First, like Czerny and Marx, he maintains that ‘dramatic intensification in the rondo’ is primarily associated with the returns of the refrain. Second, he observes that refrains are usually more tightly knit than sonata themes and tend to be conventional and symmetrical, closing with a perfect authentic cadence. Additionally, ‘the tonal conflict of home and subordinate keys – so often dramatized in sonata form – tends to be tempered in rondo forms’.58 Indeed, establishment of the subordinate key is often quite weak and subordinate themes in rondos are often relatively compressed and simple in comparison with those in sonata movements, frequently dispensing with a closing perfect authentic cadence (particularly in Beethoven). Moreover, the retransition leading back to the second refrain is ‘more elaborate than that at the end of a sonata exposition’ and ‘unlike a regular sonata, the coda is a required element of sonata‐rondo, because that section includes the final return of the main theme’.59 He further notes that fragmentary ‘wrong‐key’ returns of the refrain are more common in rondos than are non‐tonic recapitulations in sonata‐form movements: since ‘a rondo places its dramatic emphasis on the return of the refrain, an initial appearance in the “wrong” key, corrected shortly thereafter in the right key, is a particularly effective device’.60

Caplin elaborates on some of these points with reference to the Finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata, Op. 10 No. 3 in D major, which is marked ‘Rondo’ by the composer, and which is put forward in Elements of Sonata Theory as a somewhat eccentric deployment of ‘the standard Type 4 sonata’ (p. 407).61Ex. 3 shows bars 1–24 of this movement, comprising the refrain (bars 1–8), the transition (bars 9–16) and the B section (bars 17–24). Caplin's main contention is that the ‘extremely incomplete subordinate theme consists essentially of a weak initiating function (weak because the prolonged tonic is inverted) followed by a brief retransition’ and that as a result continuation and cadential functions ‘are eliminated from the form’.62 Whilst they do not directly tackle this issue, Hepokoski and Darcy do describe the ‘exposition’ as ‘disturbingly compressed’, also noting additional quirky factors including the lack of an EEC and ‘a radical deformation of what one expects to the be [sic] recapitulatory rotation, which, in its fidgety tension, finds itself “unable” to reprise the original S at all, much less in the tonic, and instead strays off into differing tonal areas, failing also in the process to secure an ESC’ (p. 407). The movement's idiosyncrasies do not in fact end here. The refrain itself opens disarmingly with a I–IV progression in D that could initially be interpreted as V–I in G major and evades a clear cadence in the tonic until the start of the transition (bar 9), which means that it is in an important sense preparatory, definitively establishing the tonic only at its close.63 The two principal retransitions are thus concerned with stabilising the refrain's opening: the first time, there is a wrong‐key attempt at restarting the theme (in F major) followed by an elaborate sequence and a tonal correction (bars 46–56);64 on the second occasion (bars 72–83), the opening three‐note motive is liquidated over a progression that incorporates all three transpositions of the diminished seventh chord and concludes with a lengthy dominant pedal.65 In short, the entire movement centres on returns of the refrain to the exclusion of a clear ‘subordinate’ theme and the tonal polarity associated with sonata form, even deferring definitive resolution onto the tonic until the coda (bar 106). It is surely more productive to take Beethoven at his word and analyse the movement as a rondo, not a tangential Type 4 sonata deformation; otherwise one is obliged to classify a host of other movements with only peripheral connections to sonata form as Type 4 sonatas.

To summarise, Hepokoski's and Darcy's isolation of the Type 4 sonata appears predicated on the notion that the sonata rondo is essentially a sonata form with additional returns of the first theme, rather than a refrain‐based structure that is organised in a manner resembling sonata procedure in some important respects. Conversely, for Czerny, Marx, Caplin and many others, sonata rondos are different enough from sonata forms in terms of the character of the thematic material and its working, as well as of the elements receiving structural emphasis, to justify classifying sonata rondos firmly as a rondo subcategory. As was observed above, there are some pieces – mainly first movements – in which the exposition is not repeated and the development (and possibly coda as well) begins with an (often incomplete) return of the main theme, and which in all other respects observe orthodox sonata procedure (the locus classicus of this groundplan is the first movement of Beethoven's String Quartet in F major, Op. 59 No. 1 of 1806). Such ‘rondo sonata’ movements are classified in Elements of Sonata Theory as Type 3 sonatas ‘with expositional‐repeat feint’, since Type 4 sonatas are deemed to be ‘generically unavailable for first movements’ (p. 351). Tightening up the definition of sonata rondo along Caplinesque lines would however have the advantage of rendering the problematic concept of generic non‐availability redundant in at least this instance. Naturally, there are still some movements that challenge any line of demarcation that one might be tempted to draw between rondo and sonata: the finales of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in E major, Op. 27 No. 1 of 1801 (for which Beethoven avoids the title ‘Rondo’) and Mendelssohn's Piano Sonata in B major, Op. 106 (1827), for example. Both of these movements might plausibly be analysed as a rondo or a sonata and, interestingly, both are further complicated by a substantial return of material from an earlier movement. Tovey was in fact disconcerted enough by the former to classify it as a ‘Rondo, with Development in place of Second Episode’.66

The Neologising Impulse

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The inclusion in its sonata‐form typology of two categories not normally singled out for separate classification reflects a central tendency in Elements of Sonata Theory that might be termed its ‘neologising impulse’. A number of the book's neologisms are persuasive: for instance, the ‘grand antecedent’, ‘a lengthy, often multimodular antecedent phrase’ (p. 77) and ‘grand consequent’, as well as a variant of the sentence labelled the ‘loop’, in which ‘a short module … is either elided or flush‐juxtaposed with a repetition of itself before moving forward into different material’ (p. 80). But, as I have consistently suggested, in many cases the authors’ suspicion of existing vocabulary and concepts spawns new terminology and theoretical formulations that are not an obvious improvement and are in many cases unnecessary.

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A particularly clear‐cut example of this is the division into ‘two‐part’ and ‘continuous’ expositions, depending on whether or not there is a clear medial caesura before the onset of ‘S‐space’. This distinction is set up contra Tovey, Rosen et al, who essentially view the exposition as embodying a tonal drama and are not so particular about precisely where the opposing non‐tonic key is consolidated, whether this occurs at the start of the secondary material or during the closing section. Hepokoski and Darcy are surprisingly inflexible about their distinction: ‘If there is no medial caesura there is no second theme’ (p. 52). Of course, there are many movements with supposedly ‘continuous’ expositions that contain what appears in rhetorical terms to be an incontrovertible secondary theme despite the lack of a medial caesura, a choice of layout that became increasingly common in the nineteenth century. The first movement of Mendelssohn's Cello Sonata No. 1 in B (1838) is one particularly striking example amongst many: here, the second theme begins at bar 61 over a diminished seventh and a clear cadence in the dominant is deferred until bar 100, where the closing section begins with a variant of the opening theme. Sonata Theory's approach to such movements is to accord priority to tonal organisation and posit that the apparent secondary theme is deceptive or even calculatedly deficient in one or more respects (pp. 51–64).

Hepokoski and Darcy even go so far as to identify elaborate dialogues between the two exposition types in some works, notably in the first movement of Mozart's String Quartet in D minor, K. 421 (1783), which despite its seemingly ‘clear two‐part exposition’ displays ‘ravishingly clever ambiguity’ by being ‘poised between the two exposition types – and partaking of both’ (p. 63). But since readers are later informed that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ‘theorists … persistently ignored the continuous‐exposition format’ (p. 118), how are they to avoid concluding that Mozart is allegedly conducting a dialogue with a structural model invented in the late twentieth century? And what are readers to make of the fact that here tonal concerns seem to be paramount, whereas on other occasions – for instance at times when recapitulations are posited to begin in non‐tonic keys (see pp. 260–79) – thematic elements are privileged? Matters are made worse by analyses of specific works that do not fit easily within the established parameters. The first movement of Mozart's String Quintet in G minor, K. 516 (1787), is subjected to an especially perplexing interpretation (p. 29), in which the transition is asserted to begin as early as bar 9 and to conclude at bar 29 with a perfect authentic cadence in G minor, whereupon the secondary theme is understood to begin, still in the tonic, at bar 30. This is all despite the fact that the relative major is not unequivocally confirmed until bar 64. Here the movement has been classified as a ‘two‐part’ exposition mainly on the basis of thematic rather than tonal factors; but the idea that the perfect cadence at bar 29 functions as a ‘medial caesura’ rather than a conclusion to the first theme is fundamentally unconvincing. Unfortunately, then, both the concepts of the ‘continuous’ and ‘two‐part’ expositions and the manner in which they are deployed analytically underline the book's confusingly informal approach to the relationship between ‘rhetorical form’ and ‘tonal form’. A more productive strategy might be to dispense with the distinction between types of exposition and simply posit that a non‐tonic key is normally conclusively tonicised at some point from the end of the transition onwards, which of course brings us back to the notion of tonal polarity propounded by Rosen and others.

Another highly self‐conscious use of neologism occurs in Sonata Theory's normative model for the internal structure of ‘developmental space’. Caplin, following Erwin Ratz, proposes a tripartite scheme of ‘pre‐core, core and retransition’ that does seem to underpin a significant proportion of both eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century development sections.67 Hepokoski and Darcy forcefully reject this, advocating instead a model of ‘four zones … not all of which need be deployed in any given work’: a ‘short, optional link’; the ‘entry or preparatory zone’; the ‘central action or set of actions’; and the ‘exit or transition’ (pp. 229–30). The only salient difference between this and Caplin's model is the subdivision of the ‘pre‐core’ into ‘link’ and ‘preparatory zone’, and the former is in any case declared to be ‘optional’. Moreover, one reads in the course of the same chapter: ‘Because there are so many exceptions and individual treatments, it has always been difficult to generalize about developments’ (p. 206). The new terminology thus adds little to existing thought on developments and one wonders whether the hostile rhetoric directed at Caplin's model (which is described as ‘underdeveloped’) is really necessary. In the light of all this, it is a relief that the authors decide not to take up some of their own neologisms: ‘post‐P continuation modules’ is suggested as a replacement for the conventional and serviceable ‘transition’ (p. 94), for example, but it is not utilised further in the book.

Caplin's ideas are in fact targeted for sustained critique on a broad range of fronts throughout Elements of Sonata Theory. Another area of disagreement concerns the placing of the exposition's definitive non‐tonic cadence. Hepokoski and Darcy, following William Rothstein, devise what they term the ‘first‐PAC rule’:68 in a sonata movement the EEC is deemed to take place ‘after the onset of the secondary theme, on the attainment of the first satisfactory perfect authentic cadence that proceeds onward to differing material’ (p. 120). Caplin's contrasting view is that the final perfect authentic cadence of the ‘subordinate‐theme group’ is the definitive one, leading to a ‘closing group’ with a ‘postcadential function’ and a ‘general sense of compression of musical material’.69 This at first seems like a straightforward difference of opinion, but Hepokoski's and Darcy's stance is rapidly modified on contact with the actual repertoire. Much of their Chapter 8 (‘S‐Complications’) is devoted to situations where the EEC might be deferred: ‘retrospective reopenings of the first PAC’ in ‘S‐space’, the ‘re‐launching’ of S after the apparent onset of C‐space, and so on. The symbol ‘S^c’ is even devised to deal with situations where the closing material seems to ‘take on the EEC‐burden of S’ (p. 191). Their analysis of the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in F major, K. 332 (1781–3), posits an EEC‐deferral sequence lasting 30 bars – nearly a third of the entire exposition (pp. 159–62). Thus in practice their position frequently draws so close to that of Caplin that the reader is once again surprised by both the categorical nature of their initial pronouncement and the vehemence with which it is expressed.

Other relatively small differences with Caplin – such as whether the ‘dominant lock’ that often concludes transitions might best be deemed ‘post‐cadential’ (Caplin's preference) or as keeping the point of cadential ‘arrival alive’ (Hepokoski's and Darcy's view) – are laboured at length and repeated more than once (see the footnotes to pp. 28, 31 and 39 on this issue). One cannot escape the impression that there is a Bloomian sense of belatedness behind all this: because Classical Form is a ‘precursor’ text to Elements of Sonata Theory, Hepokoski and Darcy have to exaggerate the differences in approach between the two books and even, it seems, propose divergences where they do not really exist. Similarly, the fierce bombardment of Rosen's The Classical Style and Cone's Musical Form and Musical Performance (see especially pp. 242–5) leaves those books’ core premises sufficiently unscathed as to reaffirm one's trust in their fundamental durability.

Conclusions

The ‘generic default’ for a review that expresses reservations is to have an initial summary of the positive points as a preface to an extended critique. This essay is a ‘mirror form’ of the normal format: having outlined my quibbles, I shall close by detailing those aspects that make Elements of Sonata Theory a valuable contribution to the field and by sketching the basis for a potential alternative approach to sonata‐form works, especially those written after the death of Beethoven.

One of the most debilitating trends in recent musicology has been a stifling emphasis on cultural studies and the wholesale appropriation of ideas from other disciplines, as well as an avoidance of engagement with the detailed workings of what used to be thought of as ‘mainstream’ repertoire and of instrumental music in particular. Given the prevailing academic climate, publishing a book that unashamedly concentrates on technical analytical issues in Mozart's instrumental works is refreshingly non‐conformist and uncompromising. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to suggest that, along with Caplin's Classical Form, this book already seems to be at the forefront of a most welcome general revival in the fortunes of music theory and analysis. It is true that in the Appendix on ‘grounding principles’ Hepokoski and Darcy feel constrained to give a nod in the direction of inter‐disciplinarity, including all the usual suspects: postmodernism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, reader‐response theory, sociological theory and the rest (pp. 603–5). But such concerns prove to be peripheral to the main text, which is chiefly composed of theoretical explorations of a concentratedly musical bent and of detailed readings of parts of specific movements. And whilst it may be regretted that the reader is never offered an application of the intricacies of Sonata Theory to a complete movement, in most of the analyses there is something that one wishes one had thought of oneself or that forces one to reach for a score and look at a familiar piece in a new way, whether that be the Finale of Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 or the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24.

The encyclopaedic aspect of Elements of Sonata Theory is also a great strength. Its drawing together and careful dissection of an astonishing array of earlier scholarship, both published and unpublished, is a considerable achievement in its own right and makes the book an indispensable work of reference; the bibliography alone (pp. 623–31) is probably worth the purchase price. The three concluding chapters on Mozart's concertos are a tour de force in their synthesis of existing ideas and new perspectives, and unquestionably constitute a major contribution to Mozart studies in general. The book also contains valuable bonus material lying outside its central remit, such as the extremely useful section on key choice and movement patterns in ‘three‐ and four‐movement sonata cycles’ (Chapter 15). Moreover, its examinations of many important and previously under‐examined issues supplementary to the main theoretical arena –‘repetition schemes’ (pp. 20–2) and the ‘extra burden of minor‐mode sonatas’ (pp. 306–10), to name but two – are highly informative.

As far as the core theory is concerned, despite its problematic elements, there are aspects that indisputably provide significant new insights. In according full recognition to the ritornello/sonata hybrid Type 5, Hepokoski and Darcy open up a whole range of analytical possibilities previously impeded by the tendency of earlier sonata thinking to subsume concerto‐sonata adaptations within other broader sonata categories. Similarly, one result of the goal‐directed cast of the Essential Sonata Trajectory and its concomitant emphasis on the TR, S and C spaces is a valuable corrective to the tendency in many earlier writings on sonata form to privilege the primary material. If the assertion that the nature of S ‘makes a sonata a sonata’ (p. 117) is perhaps overstated, it nonetheless certainly necessitates a radical reappraisal of long‐standing analytical methodologies. Most of all, the technical rigour with which Hepokoski and Darcy have tackled their project has raised the bar for subsequent theoretical forays into the sonata‐form sphere.

What, then, are the consequences of all this for any intended future study of sonata form? As regards structure, it seems clear that an alternative basic model to Hepokoski's and Darcy's ‘generic layout’ is called for. The authors’ theories about the function and make‐up of ‘S‐space’ notwithstanding, more detailed attention now needs to be paid to the differing roles of primary and secondary material and to the way the two interact, areas that Sonata Theory underplays. This in turn suggests that more equal emphasis must be given to the front‐weighted as well as the goal‐directed aspects of sonata form. As far as developments and recapitulations are concerned, more flexible approaches that are less reliant on the rotational metaphor are required. On the smaller scale, a theory of how sonatas work at the ‘modular’ level seems vital (as considered above, Hepokoski's and Darcy's approach to this dimension is somewhat informal). Moreover, contra Sonata Theory's preoccupation with tonal factors, the role of thematic and motivic process needs to be worked fully into the equation. Finally, a new sonata model will have to be flexible enough to accommodate the overwhelming predominance, from the second quarter of the nineteenth century onwards, of characteristics that are exceptional in or absent from earlier sonata movements: expositions that do not reach an unequivocal cadence in a secondary key, recapitulations that begin over a dominant pedal, end‐directed tonal structures, and so forth.

The obvious starting point for a model along these lines is of course Caplin. Hepokoski and Darcy optimistically imply that they have superseded Caplin's ideas, but in fact Sonata Theory's ‘generic layout’ has least to offer in the domains where Caplin provides the greatest explanatory force. In particular, Caplin's distinctions between ‘tight‐knit’ and ‘loose‐knit’ material, and between presentational, continuing and concluding functions, could form the basis of a generative sonata model. Such a model might incorporate both Hepokoski's and Darcy's insights into large‐scale structure and the work done by Carl Dahlhaus, Walter Frisch, Janet Schmalfeldt and others on thematic process (as Caplin acknowledges, his theory, despite its Schoenbergian roots, sidelines Schoenberg's concept of ‘developing variation’).70

Constructing an alternative sonata model will also involve shelving Sonata Theory's concepts of the ‘genre sonata’ and ‘deformation’, and this will in turn necessitate greater historical nuance. In the late eighteenth century, a particular sonata movement was formed not in dialogue with a ‘generic layout’ theorised in the late twentieth century, but through creative engagement with syntactical conventions governed by a common style. The musical landscape changed markedly in the early nineteenth century owing to the emerging consciousness of an ‘anterior corpus’ of works (Julia Kristeva's term), with which composers interacted to produce their own individual conceptions of form, tonality, material process and so on.71 As an initial step towards incorporating this decisive shift into a sonata‐theoretical model, a systematic and more comprehensive investigation of the repertoire is required. This preliminary statistical survey will need to be much more even‐handed in its coverage of what are now deemed to be the ‘mainstream’ and ‘peripheral’ repertoires: a twenty‐first‐century view of the late‐eighteenth‐ and early nineteenth‐century sonata canon is not congruent with that outlined in earlier theoretical texts such as Czerny's School of Practical Composition, so it is problematic to posit ‘norms’ and exceptions exclusively on the basis of current values. The statistical survey will also need to identify variations of sonata procedure between genres. To take an obvious example, in the early nineteenth century substantially truncated recapitulations seem to be much more common in concertos than in other types of work.

Once a large representative sample of works has been assembled, it is also important to recognise the limitations of the statistical evidence. One can quantify frequencies of occurrence of particular procedures according to genre, chronology, geographical location and so on; but drawing up hierarchies of ‘defaults’ on the basis of such basic statistical analysis is a questionable enterprise, because it tells us nothing about the unique network of connections surrounding a particular work. Every nineteenth‐century sonata movement is to an important extent the product of a composer's pedagogical experience, knowledge of the repertoire and theoretical opinions, and of the ways in which that composer's practice interconnects with all three of these. Sometimes investigating the intertextual web surrounding individual pieces can produce surprising results: Schumann's and Mendelssohn's concertos exhibit a wealth of cross‐references with the concertos of Weber, Field, Herz, Moscheles and Kalkbrenner but display relatively few points of contact with those of Mozart and Beethoven.72 A related complication is that many works that were highly influential in the nineteenth century were not by any stretches of the imagination ‘normative’: Beethoven's ‘Eroica’ Symphony and ‘Appassionata’ Sonata are two of the most obvious examples.

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In short, the immediate way forward may be a detailed empirical, composer‐by‐composer study of the late eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century repertoire and thorough scrutiny of channels of reception as revealed in the interrelationship of individual practices and compositional precedents. From this perspective, Elements of Sonata Theory constitutes an imposing examination of sonata procedures in Mozart especially, setting challenging standards for other investigations of individual composers’ outputs. The book thus seems set to exert a considerable influence on the field for many years to come.

The Piano Sonata No. 31 in A♭ major, Opus 110, by Ludwig van Beethoven was composed in 1821. It is the central piano sonata in the group of three opera 109–111 which he wrote between 1820 and 1822, and the thirty-first of his published piano sonatas.
In the summer of 1819 Moritz Schlesinger, from the Schlesinger firm of music publishers based in Berlin, met Beethoven and asked to purchase some compositions. After some negotiation by letter, and despite the publisher's qualms about Beethoven's retaining the rights for publication in England and Scotland, Schlesinger agreed to purchase 25 songs for 60 ducats and three piano sonatas at 90 ducats (Beethoven had originally asked 120 ducats for the sonatas). In May 1820 Beethoven agreed, the songs (opus 108) already being available, and he undertook to deliver the sonatas within three months. These three sonatas are the ones now known as opera 109–111.
Beethoven was prevented from completing all three of the promised sonatas on schedule by factors including an attack of jaundice; Opus 109 was completed and delivered in 1820, but correspondence shows that Opus 110 was still not ready by the middle of December 1821, and the completed autograph score bears the date December 25, 1821. Presumably the sonata was delivered shortly thereafter, since Beethoven was paid the 30 ducats for this sonata in January 1822.
Alfred Brendel characterizes the main themes of the sonata as all derived from the hexachord - the first six notes of the diatonic scale - and the intervals of the third and fourth that divide it. He also points out that contrary motion is a feature of much of the work, particularly prominent in the scherzo second movement.
The first movement is marked Moderato cantabile molto espressivo (“at a moderate speed, in a singing style, very expressively”). Denis Matthews describes the first movement as in “orderly, predictable, sonata form”, and Charles Rosen calls the movement's structure Haydnesque. Its opening is marked con amabilità (“amiably”). After a pause on the dominant seventh the opening is extended in a cantabile theme. This leads to a light arpeggiated demisemiquaver transition passage. The second group of themes in the dominant E♭ includes appoggiatura figures, and a bass which descends in steps from E♭ to G three times while the melody rises by a sixth. The exposition ends with a semiquaver cadential theme. Beethoven does not ask for the exposition to be repeated.
The development section (which Rosen calls “radically simple”) consists of restatements of the movement's initial theme in a falling sequence, with underlying semiquaver figures. Tovey compares the artful simplicity of the development with the entasis of the Parthenon's columns.
The recapitulation begins conventionally with a restatement of the opening theme in the tonic (A♭ major), Beethoven combining it with the arpeggiated transition motif. The cantabile theme gradually modulates via the subdominant to E major (a seemingly remote key which both Matthews and Tovey rationalise by viewing it as a notational convenience for F♭ major). The harmony soon modulates back to the home key of A♭ major. The movement closes with a cadence over a tonic pedal.