Beyond 'Norms and Deformations' Towards A Theory of Sonata PDF

Critical Forum
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2249.2008.00283.x
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paul wingfield
Beyond ‘Norms and Deformations’: Towards a Theory of

Sonata Form as Reception History
Preliminaries
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 incor-
poration 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
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© 2008 The Author.
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138 paul wingfield
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 hierarchic-
ally 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
© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

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Beyond ‘Norms and Deformations’ 139
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 ‘defor-
mation’ 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
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140 paul wingfield
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 (‘P1.1’, ‘P1.2’ 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 func-
tional chord symbols (for example, ‘VT’ distinguishes a tonicised dominant
from one that is sounded but not tonicised, which is designated ‘VA’), 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:\P1.1’. 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: ‘Prf
[S1.4—(’) Episode S1.2—] (’) S1.1 S1.3 S1.4 ⇒ RT! (’) [Prf!! S1.2!!](’) C [S1.4!!]’
(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 considera-
tion 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 exam-
ple, would clearly add much valuable definition to the bare percentages quoted
with regard to the deployment of different types of medial caesura. Unfortu-
nately, 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 con-
sidering 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.
Fig. 1 Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s musical examples classified by composer and genre

142 paul wingfield
Fig. 2 Formal summary of Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2, ii
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 con-
structed 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, con-
cluding 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

Ex. 1a Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2/ii, bars 1–13
Ex. 1b Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2/ii, bars 232–331

144 paul wingfield
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 pro-
cedures 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 environ-
ment 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

146 paul wingfield
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 con-
stituent 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 Summary of Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s analysis of Beethoven, Piano Sonata

in C major, Op. 2 No. 3/i, bars 1–90
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 w (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 ‘P1.1’ from ‘P1.2’ 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 ‘P1.1, P1.2’. 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.

148 paul wingfield
‘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 justifica-
tion. 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 develop-
ments 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 reorder-
ings 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’ recapitula-
tions endorsed by writers from Schumann to Rosen, Timothy Jackson and

150 paul wingfield
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 con-
voluted 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
Fig. 4 Formal summary of Mozart Piano Sonata in D, K. 311/i, bars 40–112

152 paul wingfield
Ex. 2 Mozart, Piano Sonata in D major, K. 311/i, bars 99–112
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 pro-
nouncement 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 Never-
theless, 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 Ter-
minological nuances aside, the basic definition of ‘deformation’ as a rejection

154 paul wingfield
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 contra-
vene 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 develop-
ment’, 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 correspond-
ence between the form’s two parts usually begins midway through the transi-
tional 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

156 paul wingfield
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 expo-
nents). 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 con-
vincing. 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 develop-
mental 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

158 paul wingfield
Fig. 5 Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s ‘roster’ of nineteenth-century ‘Type 2’ sonata

movements
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 consol-
idation 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 satisfac-
torily 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 proce-
dure 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 recapit-
ulatory 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

160 paul wingfield
(‘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 charac-
teristic. 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: Pref TR ’ S / C ⇒ RT (EEC in V or III)

Rotation 2: Pref development or episode RT
Rotation 3: Pref TR ’ S / C ⇒ RT (ESC in I or i)
Rotation 4: Pref + 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.

162 paul wingfield
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 struc-
tural procedure. He observes that ‘we cannot fail to recognize a certain light-
ness (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, propos-
ing a number of elements that distinguish the sonata rondo from the sonata
proper.57 First, like Czerny and Marx, he maintains that ‘dramatic intensifica-
tion 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).61
Ex. 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 con-
tention 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 move-
ment’s idiosyncrasies do not in fact end here. The refrain itself opens disarm-
ingly 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

164 paul wingfield
Ex. 3 Beethoven, Piano Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3, Finale, bars 1–24
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

Ex. 3 Continued
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

166 paul wingfield
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 Ew major, Op. 27 No. 1 of 1801 (for
which Beethoven avoids the title ‘Rondo’) and Mendelssohn’s Piano Sonata in
B w 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

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.
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 Bw (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 nine-
teenth 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

168 paul wingfield
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 devel-
opments’ (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 situ-
ations 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 ‘Sc’ 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 uncompro-
mising. 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 achieve-
ment 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

170 paul wingfield
three concluding chapters on Mozart’s concertos are a tour de force in their

synthesis of existing ideas and new perspectives, and unquestionably con-
stitute 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 compre-
hensive 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

172 paul wingfield
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.
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.
NOTES
1. James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and
Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth-Century Sonata (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006). xxix + 661 pp. £45.00. ISBN 0-19-514640-9 (hb).
2. See, for example, the following: James Hepokoski, ‘Fiery Pulsed Libertine or
Domestic Hero? Strauss’s Don Juan Reinvestigated’, in Bryan Gilliam (ed.),
Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and his Work (Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1992), pp. 135–75; James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony
no. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 5–9 and 19–30; James
Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, ‘The Medial Caesura and its Role in the Eighteenth-
Century Sonata Exposition’, Music Theory Spectrum, 19 (1997), pp. 115–54;
Warren Darcy, ‘Bruckner’s Sonata Deformations’, in Timothy L. Jackson and
Paul Hawkshaw (eds.), Bruckner Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997), pp. 256–77; James Hepokoski, ‘Back and Forth from Egmont:
Beethoven, Mozart and the Nonresolving Recapitulation’, 19th-Century Music, 25
(2002), pp. 127–53; James Hepokoski, ‘Beyond the Sonata Principle’, Journal of
the American Musicological Society, 55 (2002), pp. 91–154; James Hepokoski,
‘Beethoven Reception: The Symphonic Tradition’, in Jim Samson (ed.), The
Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2002), pp. 424–59; and James Hepokoski, ‘Framing Till Eulenspiegel’,
19th-Century Music, 30 (2006), pp. 4–43.
3. William E. Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental
Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (New York and Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998).
4. Edward T. Cone, Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York: Norton,
1968); Charles Rosen, The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven (London:
Faber and Faber, 1971), 2nd rev. edn (New York: Norton, 1997); Mark Evan
Bonds, Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), pp. 13–52.

5. Although Schenker is a major influence on many aspects of Hepokoski’s and

Darcy’s approach to tonal structure, in Elements of Sonata Theory relatively little
space is allocated to elaborating the links between Sonata Theory and Schenker’s
ideas. The most substantial passage on the topic (pp. 147–9) comes at the end of
Chapter 7 – ‘The Secondary Theme (S) and Essential Expositional Closure
(EEC)’ – and this raises rather more questions than it answers.
6. On returning to Elements of Sonata Theory after a break between Chapter 7 and
Chapter 8 (entitled ‘S-Complications’), I had the strong impression of errone-
ously picking up a medical textbook and was reminded in reverse of David
Lodge’s fictional ‘bibliographer specializing in the history of punctuation’ who sat
through ‘the first twenty minutes of a medical paper on “Malfunctions of the
Colon” before he realised his mistake’. See Small World (London: Martin Secker
and Warburg, 1984), p. 233.
7. This total includes only movements that refer to one of Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s
five types and about which at least one substantive analytical point is made in the
text.
8. Leon Plantinga, Clementi: His Life and Music (New York and Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1977).
9. Plantinga, Clementi: His Life and Music, p. 180.
10. Julian Horton, ‘Field and the Piano Concerto’ (paper presented at the ‘Workshop
on Sonata Form in the Early Nineteenth Century’, University College Dublin,
March 2008). For a more general consideration of these trends, see Stephan
Lindeman, Structural Novelty and Tradition in the Early Romantic Piano Concerto
(Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon Press, 1999), especially pp. 7–42.
11. Julian Horton, ‘Sonata Form as Reception History: John Field’s Piano Concerto
No. 7 and Schumann’s Piano Concerto Op. 54’ (paper presented at the Sixth
European Music Analysis Conference, Freiburg, October 2007).
12. Joseph Kerman, ‘Beethoven’s Minority’, in Write All These Down: Essays on Music
(Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 217–37.
13. See Hepokoski, ‘Back and Forth from Egmont’, especially pp. 127–36.
14. Paul Wingfield, ‘Clementi’s Minor-Mode Sonata Strategies’ (paper presented at
the Sixth European Music Analysis Conference, Freiburg, October 2007).
15. I am most grateful to my colleague Dr Joan Lasenby of Trinity College,
Cambridge and the Cambridge University Engineering Department for explaining
to me in detail the mathematical uses of the terms ‘vector’ and ‘rotation’.
16. Donald Francis Tovey, A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas (London:
The Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, 1931), pp. 24–5.
17. Daniel Chua, Absolute Music and the Construction of Meaning (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1999), pp. 199–208 and especially pp. 205–6.
18. Leo Treitler, ‘Mozart and the Idea of Absolute Music’, in Music and the Historical
Imagination (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 176–214.
19. John Frow, Genre (London and New York: Routledge, 2006).

174 paul wingfield
20. Frow, Genre, p. 9.

21. Frow, Genre, pp. 24–5.
22. As advanced in James Hepokoski, ‘Sonata Theory and Dialogic Form’ (paper
presented at the Sixth European Music Analysis Conference, Freiburg, October
2007). His reading of The Ruins of Athens as a ‘deformed’ Type 3 sonata, whose
unusual properties include secondary and closing material in the subdominant
and the omission of S and C from the recapitulation, provoked considerable
debate. During discussion Hepokoski pronounced the more obvious ternary
interpretation favoured by delegates to be ‘generically unavailable’ for an overture
composed in 1811.
23. See the following: Robert Schumann, ‘A Symphony by Hector Berlioz’, in
Edward T. Cone (ed.), Berlioz: Fantastic Symphony (New York: Norton, 1971), pp.
220–48; Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms, 2nd rev. edn (New York: Norton, 1988),
pp. 144–5; and Timothy L. Jackson, ‘The Finale of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony
and the Tragic Reversed Sonata Form’, in Bruckner Studies, pp. 140–208.
24. The two pertinent texts are Anton Reicha, Traité de haute composition musicale,
Vol. 2 (Paris: Zetter, 1826) and Carl Czerny, School of Practical Composition,
trans. John Bishop, vol. 1 (London: Cocks, c. 1848).
25. A. B. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven: Selected Writings on Theory and
Method, ed. and trans. Scott Burnham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997), p. 168.
26. Caplin, Classical Form, p. 139.
27. The eight Clementi movements in question are: the first movements of the piano
sonatas Op. 10 No. 1 in A major (1783), Op. 10 No. 3 in Bw major (1783), Op.
13 No. 4 in Bw major (1785), Op. 16 in D major (1786), Op. 23 No. 3 in Ew major
(1790) and Op. 25 No. 3 in Bw major (1790); and the finales of the piano sonatas
Op. 10 No. 2 in D major (1783) and Op. 13 No. 5 in F major (1785; revised
1810).
28. See in particular Joseph N. Straus, ‘Normalizing the Abnormal: Disability in
Music and Music Theory’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 59
(2006), pp. 113–84; and Julian Horton, ‘Bruckner’s Symphonies and Sonata
Deformation Theory’, Journal of the Society for Musicology in Ireland, 1 (2005),
pp. 1–13.
29. Straus, ‘Normalizing the Abnormal’, pp. 130–1.
30. Straus, ‘Normalizing the Abnormal’, pp. 126–9.
31. See n. 24 above for details of Reicha’s and Czerny’s principal texts; A. B. Marx’s
main work is Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch-theoretisch,
vols. 1–4 (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1837–47), and Ernst Richter’s key
text is Die Grundzüge der musikalischen Formen und ihre Analyse (Leipzig: Georg
Wigand, 1852).
32. Paul Wingfield and Julian Horton, ‘Norm and Deformation in Mendelssohn’s
Sonata Forms’, in Jacqueline Waeber and Nicole Grimes (eds.), Mendelssohn in
the Long Nineteenth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, in press).

33. James Webster, ‘Sonata Form’, in Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (eds.), The New
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 2001),
Vol. 23, pp. 687–701; this quotation p. 693.
34. Charles Rosen, Sonata Forms, pp. 97, 144–5, 286–7 and 322–3.
35. Eugene K. Wolf, ‘Sonata Form’, in Don Michael Randall (ed.), The Harvard
Dictionary of Music, 4th edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003),
pp. 799–802; this quotation, p. 801.
36. Rosen, Sonata Forms, p. 161.
37. The sixteen movements in question are: the overtures to Apollo et Hyacinthus, K.
38 (1767), and Il re pastore, K. 208 (1775); the first movements of symphonies
No. 1 in Ew, K. 16 (1764–5), No. 4 in D, K. 19/i (1765), No. 5 in Bw, K. 22/i
(1765), No. 6 in F, K. 43 (1767), and No. 20 in D, K. 133 (1772); the first
movements of the Piano Sonatas in Ew, K. 282 (1775), and D, K. 311 (1777),
and of the Violin Sonata in D, K. 306 (1777); the slow movements of the String
Quartet, K. 155 (1772), and the Flute Quartet in G, K. 285a (1778); and the
finales of the Symphony No. 11 in D, K. 84 (1770), of two unnumbered sym-
phonies in D, K. 81 (1770) and K. 95 (1770), and of Eine kleine Nachtmusik,
K. 525 (1787). See pp. 362 and 372.
38. The last Type 2a piano-sonata movement by Clementi is the Finale of Op. 20 in
C (published 1787); other examples are rare in works published after 1780.
39. The recapitulations of the following additional Clementi minor-mode move-
ments contain substantial passages in the submediant major: the first movements
of Op. 7 No. 3 (1782), Op. 34 No. 2 (1795) and Op. 50 No. 3 (published
1821); the Finale of Op. 50 No. 3; and Gradus ad Parnassum No. 44 (published
1819).
40. For an interpretation of the Quartettsatz as a Type 2 variant see Martin Chusid,
‘Schubert’s Chamber Music: Before and After Beethoven’, in Christopher H.
Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Schubert (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), pp. 174–92; see especially pp. 178–9.
41. Robert Pascall, ‘Some Special Uses of Sonata Form by Brahms’, Soundings, 4
(1974), pp. 58–63.
42. Edward Aldwell and Carl Schachter, Harmony and Voice Leading, 2nd edn (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989), p. 572.
43. Timothy L. Jackson, ‘Aspects of Sexuality and Structure in the Later Symphonies
of Tchaikovsky’, Music Analysis, 14 (1995), pp. 3–25; see especially pp. 7–9.
44. This issue is examined in detail in Paul Wingfield and Julian Horton, ‘Norm and
Deformation in Mendelssohn’s Sonata Forms’.
45. The term ‘multi-movement form within a single movement’ is in fact Hepokoski’s
and he cites Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 as a seminal example; see Hepokoski,
Sibelius: Symphony no. 5, p. 7. For an extensive consideration of ‘two-dimensional’
or ‘double-function’ form see Steven vande Moortele, ‘Two-Dimensional Sonata
Form in Germany and Austria between 1850 and 1950: Theoretical, Analytical,
and Critical Perspectives’ (PhD diss., University of Leuven, 2006).

176 paul wingfield
46. Steven vande Moortele, ‘Form, Program, and Deformation in Liszt’s Hamlet’,
Dutch Journal of Music Theory, 11 (2006), pp. 71–82; see especially p. 74, n. 16.
47. Schumann, ‘A Symphony by Hector Berlioz’, pp. 230–1.
48. Czerny, School of Practical Composition, vol. 1, pp. 69–75.
49. Czerny, School of Practical Composition, vol. 1, p. 69.
50. Czerny, School of Practical Composition, vol. 1, pp. 33–7.
51. Czerny, School of Practical Composition, vol. 1, p. 69.
52. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, pp. 55–90; this quotation p. 82.
53. Selected excerpts from the fourth edition (1868) are translated in Musical Form
in the Age of Beethoven, pp. 91–154; see especially pp. 91–5.
54. Marx, Musical Form in the Age of Beethoven, p. 95.
55. The finales of the following Beethoven sonatas are designated as rondos: Op. 2
No. 2 in A major (1794–5); Op. 7 in Ew major (1796–7); Op. 10 No. 3 in D major
(1797–8); Op. 13 in C minor (1797–8); Op 14 No. 1 in E major (1798); Op. 22
in Bw major (1800); Op. 28 in D major (1801); Op. 31 No. 1 in G major (1802);
Op. 49 No. 1 in G minor (1797?); and Op. 53 in C major (1803–4). All but the
last two belong to the Type 4 sonata category according to Hepokoski’s and
Darcy’s taxonomic criteria.
56. Although even this movement contains some conventional developmental activity:
the theme in Aw major at bar 59 is ostensibly new, but the latter stages of the
development involve (from bar 109) concentrated working of the Hauptmotiv of
the primary theme that continues throughout the retransition (bars 127–137).
57. See Caplin, Classical Form, pp. 235–41.
61. Caplin, Classical Form, pp. 236–7.
63. Tonally unstable rondo themes or rondo themes beginning in the wrong key are
relatively common in Beethoven’s works: off-tonic examples include the finales of
the String Quartet, Op. 59 No. 2 in E minor (1806), and the Piano Concerto
No. 4 in G major, Op. 58 (1804–7). On this matter, see L. Poundie Burstein,
‘The Off-Tonic Return in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major and
Other Works’, Music Analysis, 24/iii (2005), pp. 305–47.
64. Oddly, Hepokoski and Darcy identify the ‘wrong’ key here as Bw major instead of
F (p. 407).
65. The careful planning behind the deployment of diminished chords in this move-
ment is also a characteristic of the sonata’s slow movement: see Christopher
Wintle, ‘Kontra-Schenker: Largo e mesto from Beethoven’s Op. 10 No. 3’, Music
Analysis, 4 (1985), pp. 145–82.

66. Tovey, A Companion to Beethoven’s Pianoforte Sonatas, pp. 100–3.

67. See Caplin, Classical Form, pp. 139–59 and Erwin Ratz, Einführung in der musikal-
ische Formenlehre: Über Formprinzipien in den Inventionen und Fugen J. S. Bachs und
ihre Bedeutung für die Kompositionstechnik Beethovens (Vienna: Österreichischer
Bundesverlag, 1951), p. 33. As Caplin explains, he refines and adapts Ratz’s
ideas.
68. William Rothstein, Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music (New York: Schirmer, 1989),
pp. 116–17.
69. Caplin, Classical Form, pp. 121–2.
70. See, for example: Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. J. Bradford
Robinson (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1989),
pp. 13–15 and ‘Zur Formidee in Beethovens d-moll-Sonate opus 31, 2’, Die
Musikforschung, 33 (1980), pp. 310–12; Janet Schmalfeldt, ‘Form as the Process
of Becoming: The Beethoven-Hegelian Tradition and “Tempest” Sonata’,
Beethoven Forum, 4 (1996), pp. 37–71; and Walter Frisch, Brahms and the Principle
of Developing Variation (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California
Press, 1990).
71. See Julia Kristeva, ‘Word, Dialogue and Novel’, in Toril Moi (ed.), The Kristeva
Reader (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 34–61.
72. Horton, ‘Sonata Form as Reception History’; see also n. 10.


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Critical Forum

Beyond ‘Norms and Deformations’: Towards a Theory of

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) 137

Bonds labels the ‘generative view’, first expounded in detail by Schoenberg,

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

15 examines various properties of the ‘three- and four-movement sonata

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

expositional strategy in Chapter 2 is typical: ‘The large dotted-line arrow

For novice-composers, one might wittily fantasize . . . something on the order of

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

‘When selected, the V: HC MC option is typically placed from about 25 to 50

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

Fig. 2 Formal summary of Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2, ii

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

allocating the initial integers to zonal labels appear to be reasonably clear, if

Fig. 3 Summary of Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s analysis of Beethoven, Piano Sonata

Fig. 3 summarises Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s analysis of the first-movement

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

thematic and hence related to Caplin’s ‘formal functions’: a pattern of ‘basic

Allied to all this is the authors’ frequent habit of reiterating straightforward

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

musical genres (such as ‘sonata form’ or ‘the multimovement sonata’) are to be

Convenient though this approach is as a conceptual prop, it raises numerous

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

experimentation to take place; and why should a sonata’s position within a

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

beyond.23 Hepokoski and Darcy prefer to view movements exhibiting such

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

development. The defining characteristic of developments is in fact contrast,

Fig. 4 Formal summary of Mozart Piano Sonata in D, K. 311/i, bars 40–112

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

Ex. 2 Mozart, Piano Sonata in D major, K. 311/i, bars 99–112

m. 99 to be a passage of coda-rhetoric interpolation lasting until m. 109, when

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

conclusion that eighteenth- and nineteenth-century composers are entering

The recapitulation almost always enters unambiguously with the ‘simultaneous

Charles Rosen would seem to agree with Webster in viewing Type 2a as a

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

Fig. 5 Hepokoski’s and Darcy’s ‘roster’ of nineteenth-century ‘Type 2’ sonata

movement of Anton Rubinstein’s Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor (1864;

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

terms ‘sonata form with conflated response’, comprising a development

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

(‘multi-movement form within a single movement’), in which the Finale acts

The more pragmatic alternative is that nineteenth-century theorists neglected

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Rotation 1: Pref TR ’ S / C ⇒ RT (EEC in V or III)

The closely related ‘symmetrical seven-part rondo’ (AB–AC–AB1–A) does not

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Op. 2 No. 1 (1793–5), which incorporate a substantial amount of new material.56

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

Ex. 3 Beethoven, Piano Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3, Finale, bars 1–24

© 2008 The Author. Music Analysis, 27/i (2008)

Music Analysis, 27/i (2008) © 2008 The Author.

The Neologising Impulse