Ioannis
Fulias, “Sonata forms
and their theoretical evolution:
20th-century theorists
(III)”, Polyphonia 15, Athens 2009, p. 67-99.
The
eighth part of this extensive survey of the theoretical evolution of sonata
forms from 18th to 20th centuries focalises at first on Charles Rosen’s well
known publications The Classical Style
and Sonata Forms. In these two books,
Rosen refers briefly to the earlier binary sonata type, in order to put
emphasis on features that become fundamental or unnecessary in the sonata form
of the late 18th-century; his theory is grounded on a harmonic basis, as reveals
his advocacy of the
so-called “sonata principle” and the concept of the “structural dissonance”,
and also treats different sonata types – although closely interwoven with musical
genres and other musical forms, as well as not without apparent weaknesses in
terminology. James Hepokoski has critically reconstructed and re-evaluated some
of Rosen’s questionable postulates on the resolution of “structural
dissonances”, reducing the “sonata principle” effect only between exposition and recapitulation, and even exploring special treatments of secondary
themes that completely abolish the aforementioned effect. The paper concludes
with further accounts (by Wallace Berry, Siegmund Levarie and Ernst Levy, Carl
Dahlhaus, Clemens Kühn, Wolfgang Gersthofer, Jürgen Hunkemöller,
James Webster, Nicholas Cook) on the binary sonata form, concerning its tonal
plan and thematic contents, the supposed evolution from the (binary) “suite
form” to the (ternary) sonata form, and also criteria for distinguishing these
two structural types.
© Ioannis
Fulias