Ioannis Fulias: The ternary song form in Mozart’s work: two critical remarks

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Ioannis Fulias, “The ternary song form in Mozart’s work: two critical remarks”, in: Markos Tsetsos and Ioannis Fulias (ed.), W. A. Mozart. Fifteen approaches, Nefeli Publishing (“Musicology” series), Athens 2008, p. 168-202.

This study focuses on two significant aspects of the so-called “large ternary” or “ternary song form”, as it is applied in the slow movements of Mozart’s instrumental compositions. First, the evolution of the standard ternary form, in which the main structural parts appear in parataxis, is examined based on 22 relevant pieces from the 1760s up to the late 1780s. Parallel with this possibility, however, Mozart experimented towards a “dynamisation” of the ternary song form too, mainly with the assistance of techniques of sonata forms. This procedure resulted in the consolidation of a second, “dynamic” type of ternary song form, which found application in 11 more slow movements in Mozart’s work, especially after 1780 and up to the last year of his life. The breadth of application of the ternary song form in Mozart’s whole work constitutes the second crucial issue of this investigation: here, it is demonstrated that the ternary song form is not as usual as it is supposed to in Mozart’s slow movements; moreover, its applications are put under further consideration with reference to specific periods of time as well as to different musical genres.