Ioannis Fulias,
“Rondo-sonata
and sonata-rondo mixed forms in Beethoven”,
in:
Petros Vouvaris, Kostas Kardamis, Giorgos Kitsios, Evangelia Spyrakou, Iakovos
Steinhauer & Ioannis Fulias (ed.), Proceedings of the 12th Musicological
Conference under the auspices of the Hellenic Musicological Society
(Thessaloniki, 27-29 November 2020), University of Macedonia Press, Thessaloniki
2022, p. 407-433.
This study aims to determine the extent of application of rondo-sonata (das
Sonatenrondo in German) and sonata-rondo (die Rondosonate) forms as
well as the particular specifications of these mixed forms in Beethoven’s
complete music works. The relevant items – 43 movements
and independent pieces,
of which 24 are classified as rondos-sonatas and 19 as sonatas-rondos – are
almost exclusively detected in the first two out of the composer’s three
creative periods, thus revealing both a clear shift of the centre of gravity
from the rondo principle to the sonata one during the decades before and after
1800, respectively, and a remarkable degree of interdependence between form and
genre in Beethoven’s oeuvre. Moreover, the investigation of individual aspects
of these mixed forms highlights both the points of convergence and the
determinant differences between them in a systematic way, which overturns and
revises many of the established notions about them and primarily the tendency of
their assimilation in the modern theoretical debate; as it is proved, the
priority of the rondo or the sonata in these mixed forms largely determines the
structure of the main theme in each of its regular appearances as well as many
individual strategies that Beethoven applies to formulate all other components
of either a five-part rondo that extends in sonata terms or a sonata form that
expands by assimilating a rondo-like return of the initial theme before the
development section.
© Ioannis
Fulias