Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Classical Sonata Analysis

"Closed" implies finality - the music or the section is completely finished. If you have V-I as cadence, then your last chord is the tonic chord and that would suggest that the music is finished. You'll notice however when you're singing, that the main melody (usually soprano part) will also end on the tonic note. I.e. if the music is in C major, you will probably end on C in the melody at the end of a song.

In a V-I cadence, the melody might also end on E or G. This does not have a totally complete feeling. Often the music goes on. For example, this could happen in an ABA (ternary) music where it's going to modulate to the dominant and keep going, or where the music is changing direction otherwise. The composer lets you feel that this section of music is done, but the music itself is not done. In this case the cadence is referred to as semi-closed.

So to answer the first part of the question: the V-I cadence is closed or semi-closed. There are other names to this such as "authentic perfect" - the main idea is that a cadence can have an absolute finality to it because the melody ends on the tonic note, and the chord is the I chord; or it can have a more ambiguous finality.

The I-V, IV-V etc. cadences, i.e. cadences ending on V, cannot be closed cadences since the very nature of the V precludes the idea of finality.


Afaik, it's only V-vi. The vi chord is so close to I since it shares two of the notes, that it creates the temporary illusion of "finishing", and then doesn't. I think a V-vi would also allow us to slip into the relative minor rather suddenly for a modulation.

Good work, Jeff, but if M17-42 id B then M60 on should be, too.

So, more ABAB.

There are distinct similarities between M1-4 of the Allegro with M1-4 of the Spiritoso esp. the opening notes and the three note finish.

The B is also closely aligned rhythmically with the Allegro's second subject.

Another view, completely skipping these terms which I can never remember to save my life.

Any move that sounds like IV to I sounds more gentle to me, and since C to G in the key of C, I to V, has the same sound as IV to I in the key of G, where C becomes the IV chord, it has a “backwards around the circle of 5ths sound”. By backwards, I mean that music naturally wants to go counter-clockwise, C to G to D, etc.

So in the key of C, D to G is much stronger, often D7 to G, also called V or V7 of V.

So the first principle to me is about what is strongest. Now, for obvious reasons, you can also go I V I or C G C, so in the end the only thing of importance to me is what the final chord is in a key section. If it is not I, it is not final. Things are up in the air.

Very soon there are more names than I can track, so you can take all of this with a HUGE does of salt.

Deceptive cadence is another term that drives me buggy. It is used formally for a V to vi move, but logically to me ANY chord that V goes to that is not I is deceptive.

I think you have to decide which of these terms you need to communicate with other people. I find myself using them now and then simply because I am talking to people who know them can can’t follow me unless I use them!

Yes, of course ... ABAB



Agree. They look quite different on paper, but sound like you could almost hum one on top of the other.

Anything, else you want me to look for on this one. Or, should we start prepping for no 4?

I'd start on number 4, Jeff.

If this is too fast for anyone following, please remember that previous pieces and questions or discussions pertaining to them are still current and welcome.

Clementi Sonatinen No. 4 - Score Download

Just realized the numbering is all messed up on first page. I will fix and update link in short order. If following this from the numbered score, please recount measures up to M22. Sorry bout that ...

Meanwhile, having a bit of a struggle just with the keys in this movement, so will start mainly with that.

Exposition; M1-30
M1-M12 F Major
M13-M30 C Major

Development; M31-M47
Start in F Major, moving to D Minor M34-M37
then not sure about M38-M47. I do not think we are still in D Minor (G Minor, to C Major and back to F major?)

Recapitulation; M48-M71
Start in F Major, moving to G Minor M52-M55 to F Major M56 to M71

You're getting very good at this, Jeff.

M38-47 are without cadence so you can make a call on the key. The thing to do if the key is unclear is to look at what chords are being used. This might give a better idea of what's going on.

Right. Forgot about the chords. Haven't really looked at chords much since the Moonlight. Will get on this in the AM.

side note: you were right about the small sectioning and perfecting on the Bach piece. What a difference it is making in getting this in much better shape faster. Trouble spot is going to be M33-M40 (I can see it coming) and will take some extra time with this.

I'm looking at the Development, and mm. 38 - 47 within that part. Like Jeff says, it moves into the key of Dm briefly. Eventually it wants to go back to F major for the recapitulation. So mm. 38 - 47 are the transition to bring us back from Dm to F major.

m. 38 I hear it becoming D7 at the end. I can hear beats 1 & 2 as F#o7-b9. The b9 (Eb) resolves to become D. A diminished chord often suggests an invisible root that would make it a V of something, and the F#o part could be the top half of D7. Another way of looking at it is that a fully diminished 7 often wants to move to the chord that is a half step above, cadence-like. Here: F# to G. In fact, the next chord becomes a Gm. So the whole thing from m. 38 - 39 suggests D7 to Gm, or F#dim7 => D7 => Gm.

In m. 39 the C and A are dancing around the Bb which appears at the end. So I see this as becoming Gm.

mm. 40 & 41 do the same thing as the previous two measures: Eo7-b9 becoming C7, resolving to F. Again, the Bb and G dance around the A before it appears in m. 40.

Measure 42 is a very emphatic G7. We can expect that C major or C minor will probably be there next, and of course C is the dominant of F, which in sonata form is the key we know we have to have for the recapitulation.

Mm. 43 & 44, the whole thing centers around C (major chord) but the other notes make me feel hints of F or Dm, like it's teasing us about where it's going to go. I wasn't sure what to call beats 2 and 3. Dm/C? Csus42 that's missing the G we'd need?

Measure 45 is a very solid C7 and then we're home free to get back to F major in the Recapitulation.

So it's like there are V-I movements there (I don't know if they would be called cadences, though), but they are subtle. I see a general movement starting at 38 of D7 => Gm => D => F, then G7 = C and C7 bringing us back to the key of F major.

I remember reading that sonata form often has a section which is a transition into new keys, which can be relatively lengthy.

This is what made me want to look, and now it seems I'm hooked on the piece. Richard, I wondered when you wrote "cadence", because I understand a cadence to be what comes at the end of a section to signify a pause or end. I am wondering whether you are referring to cadence, or to V-I pairs which are often used to establish tonality? If the latter, then I understand what you wrote.

Quoting myself since I know more:

What we actually have is m. 43 C to Dm7/C in beat 3; m. 44 C to F/C beat 3.

We have exactly the same thing going on here as we had in the last sonatina, i.e. using rootless dominant 7b9's and this time delaying the clarification of the resulting chord using sus4 and sus2's.

In M38-47 we're passing through keys rather than settling on or in them. We are modulating from D minor to a short dominant pedal/preparation passage ready for the return to tonic.

Your analysis is more thorough than mine, keystring, and better finished. I hadn't got as far as naming the chords in M43-44 (as is my wont ) but you've shown how he's effecting this 'cool' transition.

Like C7b9/E without the C? It makes it kind of tricky to figure out what it is, or what we should call it for understanding the progression. At any rate, happy to know we are just visiting on our way back to F major.

Thanks for doing my homework for me KS. It took me the longest time to figure out what you were referring to by F# in M38. Then realized the treble clef in left hand . There I go again thinking it can't be me. Reminds me of this story. I know we aren't supposed to text while driving (at least in Canada,) but this guy has bigger problems.

Wife text to Husband: Be careful driving home tonight, honey. I just heard on the radio that some lunatic is driving the wrong way on the Don Valley Parkway.

Husband text to Wife: What to you mean, some lunatic? There's not just one, there's 100's of them.

Greener, lol! Some of the conversations with my teacher go as follows:
Teacher: Where did you get that E from?
Me: (pause)
Me: Oh!

I've started circling clefs. The other trap is long measures with itty bitty notes with an accidental somewhere at the start which you forget about by the time the same note comes up near the end.

I find the chords and progressions easier to figure out if, instead of looking for a rootless V7b9, I just notice the nice rooted VIIdim7 chords. This is useful to me because I know that VIIdim chords like to go to I or Im chords, just like V chords do. It's easier for me to remember that both VIIdim and V chords like to go to I or Im, than to try to figure out roots that don't even appear in the music.

If required to, I could speak the rootless language, but it would just come about from finding the VIIdim7 to start with, and extrapolating backward to a rootless V7b9 chord, rather than from looking at the music and noticing, hey, C doesn't appear here! I bet it's a type of rootless C chord! (OK, I know, that's probably not how the people who use rootless chords, find them either.)

(I'm using V and VII here just to illustrate; if the music is shifting tonality rapidly with a lot of accidentals I'm probably going to notate it with letter name chords rather than roman numerals.)

The rootless language does allow you to show more things as a type of V-I progression, but it just hasn't grabbed me yet.

This kind of progression (VIIdim to Im) was something I was going to talk about way back in the Bach Prelude in C Major thread, but since I seemed to be in a minority in wanting to do harmonic analysis in that thread, I ended up not bothering. Maybe it would be useful for me to say something about why VIIdim is a good friend to me, on this thread.

This post of Gary's along with an earlier post that I can't find that said any dim7 chord is a rootless Dom. 7b9

All the chords mentioned in 2) perform the same function as a dominant chord, i.e. lead us to a tonic chord.

In M38 F#dim 7 (no third) is functioning as a rootless D7. And in M40...


this is E dim 7 (no third) functioning as a rootless C7.


I think it would be useful.

There is often more than one way of seeing things in music. For example, Richard talked about sus chords where I talked about Dm7/C. These are two ways of looking at it, and both are correct. The same is true about "rootless flat nine chords" versus a fully diminished chord, versus VIIo7. It is good to have these choices. We may be more comfortable with one way, and if it works for the person, then use that. Or we may be able to see several angles through several views, and that is also useful.

- just seeing "fully diminished" gives us various bits of information
- seeing VIIo7 lets us know where that chord is going to go. If you see F#dim7, then you know that F# is the leading note (7) of G, and it gets you there.
- seeing "rootless flat nine", i.e. F#dim7 suggests D7(b9) makes us feel the V7-I progression. The "flat nine" lets us anticipate the common movement of the b9 which moves down to become D. I'm tempted to write "settle down" rather than "move down", because the Eb sets your teeth on edge, and then the D is "ah, relief!".

Hearing, including learning to hear, is also involved in this.

Finally there is also what happens in the entire measure. The end of that measure has a D7. The "rootless flat nine" chord way of seeing things lets us anticipate this settling down. To me it's like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland, where first you see the grin, and then the cat. But you know when you see the grin, the cat will follow - not anything but that cat.

There are specific situation where the rootless idea is really powerful, other places where it does not work very well.

If you have F-D moving to E C to F B and back to E C, you have no chords, but you have a chord structure IMPLIED. It works like G7 C G7 C. I'm not showing any possible bass. You don't have enough info to actually show a V or VII chord. It's all context and feel.

For the same reason, when I hear D F B moving to E G C, I don't hear VII moving to I but I hear V7 moving to I. The reason is that although D F B is technically an inversion of B D F, it is VERY close to D F *G* B, which is of course G7/D.

[cross-posted -- I was replying to Richard's post]

Yes, I remember that post of Gary's, and it was incredibly useful to me to understanding the rootless idea! I'm just not yet sold on using it in my own analysis yet. (Give it a few months though, I've resisted some other of Gary's ideas that were new to me, and I think I've ended up adopting all of them...!)

I'll try to say something about how I think of VIIdim chords (plus fully diminished and half diminished) either tonight or tomorrow.

Actually, come to think of it, I'd already found a nice result from the rootless idea in the Bach C Major Prelude... so I'm already halfway to adopting it. Eeek. (Gary pointed out the same result on that thread, but I had thought of it on my own too.)