Sonata form is fundamentally a dramatic structure that creates, manipulates, and ultimately satisfies expectation. It engages its audience by inviting prediction, association, and interpretation. This book presents nine studies that focus on sonata form.
Sonata form is fundamentally a dramatic structure that creates, manipulates, and ultimately satisfies expectation. It engages its audience by inviting prediction, association, and interpretation. That sonata form was the chief vehicle of dramatic instrumental music for nearly 200 years is due to the power, the universality, and the tonal and stylistic adaptability of its conception. This book presents nine studies whose central focus is sonata form. Their diversity attests both to the manifold analytical approaches to which the form responds, and to the vast range of musical possibility within the form's exemplars. At the same time, common compositional issues, analytical methods, and overarching perspectives on the essential nature of the form weave their way through the volume.
'On the whole the book's essays are informative and well-written; Sly is to be commended for making good on his title's promise of providing nine differing perspectives on sonata form.' Fontes Artis Musicae
