Ioannis Fulias, “Anton
Reicha and the first systematisation of music forms in the 19th century”,
Polyphonia
33-34,
Athens 2019,
p. 85-120.
The present study focuses on two major theoretical treatises of Anton Reicha (Traité
de mélodie,
1814;
Traité
de haute composition musicale,
1824-1826),
and especially in those parts where a systematic classification of the diverse
music forms is developed for the first time in the history of music theory. Main
features of the earlier attempt of 1814 are the distinction of music forms into
pairs, on the basis of both their extent (“small” and “large” forms) and their
binary or ternary
subdivision,
as well as their immediate reference and application to the – mostly vocal –
music repertoire of the late 18th century. In this way, the constitution of
music forms by Reicha is here critically examined, revealing some inherent
weaknesses but also the highly sophisticated nature of the central dualism
between the “large binary form” and the “large ternary form”. On the other hand,
the music forms that Reicha presents at the end of the second volume of his
later treatise (1826) are primarily
intended
to serve the
broader
compositional process of “exposition” and “development” of thematic ideas. Their
ideal scope is now the instrumental music, however not that of the past or even
the present, but first and foremost that of the future, as it is revealed not
only by Reicha’s few references to works from the repertoire (which, in
addition, are almost exclusively limited to his own compositions), but also by
the serious divergences noted between the proposed theoretical constructions
(for the “large binary form” that is now equated in essence to the sonata form,
for the “large ternary form” that is henceforth detached from all the other
“rondeau and rondo forms”, for the “form of fantasy”, the “variation forms” and
also the “minuet forms”) and the compositional practice of the early 19th
century.
© Ioannis
Fulias