sonata cycle

piece of instrumental music The Italian word sonata has come to mean "piece of instrumental music," although its literal translation is "sounded" or "played." This is in contrast to another Italian musical term, cantata, which means "sung," or "musical piece that is sung."

Joseph Haydn is thought of as "the Father of the Symphony" and "the Father of the String Quartet". He can also be thought of as the father of the sonata form as a means of structuring works.

3 Sonata Principle. Important to sonata form is sonata principle, which Charles Rosen discusses in his book Sonata Forms. The exposition of a sonata form presents the thematic material and articulates the movement from tonic to dominant in various ways so that it takes on the character of a polarization or opposition.

A sonata is a piece for 1,2,3 instruments composed in the construction described above. A symphony is the similar composition like a sonata but for a chamber orchestra or a full orchestra. A (classical) Concerto can be explained as a Symphony for a solo instrument (or more) and a full orchestra.

Typical sonatas consist of two, three, or four movements. Two-movement and, more specifically, three-movement schemes are most common in sonatas for one or two instruments. Beethoven, particularly in his earlier period, sometimes expanded the scheme to four movements.

The sonata first appeared in the 16th century as an instrumental piece. Sonatas came from instrumental transcriptions of canzonas (songs) in Italy. The word “sonata” originates from the Italian word “suonare”, which means, “to sound”.

In Sonata Form, the Exposition, Development and Recapitulation sections of a work (or a movement) are just like the beginning, middle, and end of a story.

By contrast, in the Classical era, a sonata is a piece for solo instrument, almost always solo piano, or a duet between piano and solo instrument, usually a violin or cello. Early in the Classical era these duo sonatas were essentially a piece for solo instrument with piano accompaniment.

A sonata is a piece for 1,2,3 instruments composed in the construction described above. A symphony is the similar composition like a sonata but for a chamber orchestra or a full orchestra. A (classical) Concerto can be explained as a Symphony for a solo instrument (or more) and a full orchestra.

Sonata form, also known as sonata-allegro form, is an organizational structure based on contrasting musical ideas. It consists of three main sections - exposition, development, and recapitulation - and sometimes includes an optional coda at the end.

The sonata da chiesa usually consists of four movements, in the order slow–fast–slow–fast. The first fast movement tends to be loosely fugal (using contrapuntal melodic imitation) in style, and thus reflects, most clearly of the four, the sonata's roots in the fantasia and canzona.

In the three-movement cycle, the most frequent order of movements is F(ast) - S(low) - F, or F - M(oderate) - F…. Haydn uses a minuet as the middle or final movement in more than half his three-movement sonatas. Mozart uses it only twice, as the middle movement, and Beethoven not at all in his three-movement sonatas….