Ioannis Fulias, “Exposition
and recapitulation as two fields of thorough development of the thematic
material in all sonata movements from Joseph Haydn’s opus 64 string quartets”,
in:
Kostas Chardas, Giorgos Sakallieros & Ioannis Fulias (ed.), 9th Musicological
Conference: “Variations, elaborations, transformations”
(Conference proceedings, under the auspices of the Hellenic Musicological
Society, Thessaloniki, 1-3 December 2017), Hellenic Musicological Society,
Thessaloniki 2021,
p.
305-317.
Contrary to the ingrained – from as early as the 19th century – theoretical
concept claiming that the process of development ought to emerge almost
exclusively in the similarly called second section of the standard ternary type
of sonata form, Haydn’s works very often bear witness to a systematic and
incessant treatment of various developmental techniques throughout this form.
For
this reason, the present paper examines under this perspective the ten movements
in sonata form included in the six string quartets, opus 64 (1790). As it makes
evident, development is never absent from the exposition, since any area after
the primary one (i.e. the transition, the secondary, or even the closing zone)
can be more or less produced by the motivic material of the initial theme,
bringing expositions that either are characterised by significant thematic
diversity or are governed by a remarkable economy (the so-called “monothematic”
expositions). Moreover, the assimilation of the development into the final
sections of these movements is a constant feature throughout the diverse cases,
ranging
from the most normative (and more parallel to the preceding expositions) to the
most reconstructed (and, therefore, far less corresponding to the initial
structural sections) recapitulations, as well as in the unique double
recapitulation that crowns the opening movement of the last quartet (in D major)
of the series.
© Ioannis
Fulias