Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner The intricacies of the Classical sonata are becoming clear!

I just sat down and listened to the allegro movements of Haydn's B minor sonata and Mozart's F major. I am stunned at the mastery, however conservative their composition style is.

Ever since my jazz teacher outlined sonata form to me, my appreciation for the great classical composers has continued to grow, to the point where I want to write my own sonatas. The structure is so codified, so exact. No music is technically perfect (the pythagorean comma), but this music is of such technical exactitude that I am in awe the composers are able to write expressive music within such a format.

Impressive.

-Colin

F major... do you mean K. 332?

Imagine if a modern pop star were to write a song: the first few measures are like Britney Spears, and then immediately the next few measures are like Elvis Presley; then then next few measures are like country music, the next few are death metal, and then next few after that are hiphop, and then after that: disco!

That's basically what Mozart did in the 1st movement exposition of K. 332.

mm. 1-4 : this is the new lyrical style ("galant") of Mozart's generation, as opposed to

mm. 5-12 : the old-school polyphony of Bach et al. ("baroque")

mm. 12-22: hunting horns; notice the left hand only plays 3rds and 5ths; dotted rhythms; the only notes used in this passage are those that could be played on a hunting horn...

mm. 22-40: this is a style called "sturm und drang," kind of like the death metal of the 1700s. Very angry, dark, minor, dramatic, see all the 16th notes?

mm. 41-55: this is a dance; a minuet

mm. 56-70: another sturm und drang syle -- my favorite part of the whole sonata! -- see especially the stark accents in mm. 60-65... certainly not light and calm, unlike

mm. 71-85: another dance common in the 1700s (not a sturm und drang dance!)

mm. 86-93: this is just virtuosic fluff -- Mozart liked to show off a little.

and that's the end of the exposition.

So in just 93 measures, he's written in all of these different contrasting styles! Galant, baroque, hunting horn, sturm und drang, menuet, virtuosic fluffiness...

And yet, it all flows together as one. (Maybe that is only because we are unfamiliar with the different styles in 1700s... today, if a songwriter were to do the same thing with American pop styles, we'd notice right away because we are so familiar with these styles.)

Nice analysis. Very helpful.

I think the human mind craves structure on some level. As musicians, we paint our pictures on the canvas of time. Rhythm and temporal structure are key.

Our structures may or may not be prescribed. In the classical sonata, it was prescribed, although most composers would make slight alterations as a sculptor might move an arm or tilt the head of a figure to find the right pose.

And friends of mine who do very abstract jazz work say that they are also guided by structure. It's not prescribed, but they explore the same landscape, pacing tension and release, exploring this or that idea. To those who don't listen to a lot of abstract music, it may sound random, but it never is, at least on some level. (Many would say the same of Boulez!)

Yes, I am very much a fan of very abstract music. It's extremely interesting to contrast abstraction and structure in a performance.

Hi everybody, I'm new to the forum!

pianojerome, in your list of different contrasting styles in K. 332 first movement, you forgot - Jazz. Look at mm. 61-64. That's exactly the II-V-I progression (IImin7-Vdom7-Imaj7) you may also find in Mark Levine's Jazz Piano book. And then, around mm. 32-37 - isn't that a tritone substitution modern jazz players are so fond of? (Ab7 as a substitute for D7, leading to Gmaj)etween

i had such a feeling before... even when i was learning Beethoven's op.49.1 sonata (more like a sonatina), i found myself amazed by the form and structure of it and how themes fold, unfold and intertwine etc... i feel more attracted to the structured music, classical sonatas mostly, rather than more Romantic type of sonatas.

There are many types of music which are nearly structureless, making Boulez look like Bach. There are two bands in particular, Sunn O))), and Earth. (no fixed tuning, no determined rhythm or meter, no tonality, not really any atonality, no key changes or progressions... the only thing you can really count on is one uncontrollable unexplainable thich sound. To set rules to this music, to control it, and to try and define it would be like taking a 60 minute video of a waterfall and trying to define the shapes, amounts of water, speed, relationship to other water molecules, and patterns... It would be next to pointless in trying to understand the waterfall) Personally, I have to listen to this music differently than most pieces. I listen to Earth like I see a landscape, you must experience the music ( which I think people only do in percentages with classical music ). Once 40 minutes through a 60 minute earth piece, you begin to transcend our reality just as you do when you are alone in nature for a long period of time. I don't know if structure in music is nessesary (although it is impossible to make music without a trace of structure). Structure in music is certainly nice once you are introduced to it, and look where our field of music would be without it!