What is the difference between rounded binary form and sonata form?!
Question: What is the difference between rounded binary form and sonata form!?
I'm trying to figure out the answer!. I know that rounded binary form is basically in ABA format, starting with an exposition, moving to the dominant (usually), then moving back to the tonic, ending with a recapitulation of the theme!. But isn't sonata form basically the same!? It also starts with an exposition, moves into a development, which eventually takes you back to a recapitulation!. So what's the difference!? Or is there even a difference!? Am I missing something!?Www@Enter-QA@Com
Answers:
The traditional pedagogy of sonata form as ternary is derived from AB Marx's writings in the 19th century!. Generally there are three sections to a typical sonata: exposition (A) development (B) recap (A')!. The problem you are running into is possibly subtle differences in notation between rounded binary and labeling the large-scale sections of sonata form, as done above!.
Where rounded binary (aka incipient ternary) uses three distinct sections to the form, they are not of equal length!. The first A section is much longer than the B, to accomodate the return to A!. also, the emphasis on key relationships is not as traditionally pronounced as you have listed in your question - rounded binary is more about the unequal lengths of A vs B, and the lengthy return to the A section rather than key areas!.
Sonata form can be broken down into much smaller portions, depending on the compositional technique!. The key areas of these sections are very important to composers writing in sonata form, where theme one is in the stable tonic key and contrasting theme(s) are in unstable key areas (usually dominant or relative major)!. The length of these themes is not standardized; theme 1 is perhaps more important and thus will be longer, but often a composer such as Beethoven experimenting with sonata form will expand greatly on the second theme or development section!.
Another way to write the smaller portions of sonata form would be something like this:
Exposition: Theme 1 (A) - transition - Theme 2 (B)
Development: C
Recapitulation: Theme 1 (A') + Theme 2 (B')
Breaking down the form a little bit more gives us some sort of five-part form (ABCA'B'), but the large-scale sonata form is - as Marx theorized - traditionally thought of as ternary!.Www@Enter-QA@Com
Where rounded binary (aka incipient ternary) uses three distinct sections to the form, they are not of equal length!. The first A section is much longer than the B, to accomodate the return to A!. also, the emphasis on key relationships is not as traditionally pronounced as you have listed in your question - rounded binary is more about the unequal lengths of A vs B, and the lengthy return to the A section rather than key areas!.
Sonata form can be broken down into much smaller portions, depending on the compositional technique!. The key areas of these sections are very important to composers writing in sonata form, where theme one is in the stable tonic key and contrasting theme(s) are in unstable key areas (usually dominant or relative major)!. The length of these themes is not standardized; theme 1 is perhaps more important and thus will be longer, but often a composer such as Beethoven experimenting with sonata form will expand greatly on the second theme or development section!.
Another way to write the smaller portions of sonata form would be something like this:
Exposition: Theme 1 (A) - transition - Theme 2 (B)
Development: C
Recapitulation: Theme 1 (A') + Theme 2 (B')
Breaking down the form a little bit more gives us some sort of five-part form (ABCA'B'), but the large-scale sonata form is - as Marx theorized - traditionally thought of as ternary!.Www@Enter-QA@Com
What he said!.!.!.!.!.
I can't imagine a more informative answer!.
The important part he points out is one of proportion and completeness!. The length and importance of the outlying sections is what seperates it from rounded binary with its truncated restatement of the "A" material!.
I once had a professor who told me that the ONLY requirement of a sonata-allegro movement is that the second subject return in the home key!. He was making a case for symetrical binary (with varied repetition)-- no need for a development, and he could point to many examples!. He challenged me to disprove it!. I am still trying to this day!. (I still disagree with him -- I just can't prove it!.
I have run into many sonatas (post-beethoven) that could easily qualify as rounded binary, however!. But inasmuch as the composer chose to call it a sonata, then that's what it is!!Www@Enter-QA@Com
I can't imagine a more informative answer!.
The important part he points out is one of proportion and completeness!. The length and importance of the outlying sections is what seperates it from rounded binary with its truncated restatement of the "A" material!.
I once had a professor who told me that the ONLY requirement of a sonata-allegro movement is that the second subject return in the home key!. He was making a case for symetrical binary (with varied repetition)-- no need for a development, and he could point to many examples!. He challenged me to disprove it!. I am still trying to this day!. (I still disagree with him -- I just can't prove it!.
I have run into many sonatas (post-beethoven) that could easily qualify as rounded binary, however!. But inasmuch as the composer chose to call it a sonata, then that's what it is!!Www@Enter-QA@Com
This is a good question!. In my view (following Charles Rosen's book "Sonata Forms" and Warren Darcy/James Hepokoski's book "Elements of Sonata Theory"), sonata form is basically a rounded binary form, writ large!. There is one crucial requirement (this is Rosen), which is that the material which was in a contrasting key in the exposition return in tonic in the recapitulation!. THIS is the chief defining characteristic of a normative sonata form piece!.
[Tangent: There are works in which this doesn't happen, but they fall under the category of "deformations" of normative sonata form (an unfortunate choice of word, but that's Hepokoski/Darcy's word, not mine)!. Even more common are those works in which the PRIMARY material is presented in a non-tonic key in the recapitulation (Schubert did this a lot)]
The A!.B!. Marx references are helpful, but outdated!. A lot has happened in sonata form studies since the 1830s/1840s!.
The problem with Marx's definition of sonata form is that it is almost entirely based on THEMATIC substance, rather than on harmonic progression!. This is why he sees sonata form as primarily a three-part form (A-B-A'), which is a ternary form!. This denies the historical fact that sonata forms are more likely to have evolved from rounded binary than from ternary (for the most obvious examples, look at 1st movements of classical symphonies -- the exposition is repeated as one section, and the development/recap is repeated as one section!.!.!.it's a TWO part form, not three!. See Rosen's book for a better explanation than I can give)
But basically, you're right -- think of sonata form as a "big" rounded binary form, in which the secondary material returns in tonic at the end!.Www@Enter-QA@Com
[Tangent: There are works in which this doesn't happen, but they fall under the category of "deformations" of normative sonata form (an unfortunate choice of word, but that's Hepokoski/Darcy's word, not mine)!. Even more common are those works in which the PRIMARY material is presented in a non-tonic key in the recapitulation (Schubert did this a lot)]
The A!.B!. Marx references are helpful, but outdated!. A lot has happened in sonata form studies since the 1830s/1840s!.
The problem with Marx's definition of sonata form is that it is almost entirely based on THEMATIC substance, rather than on harmonic progression!. This is why he sees sonata form as primarily a three-part form (A-B-A'), which is a ternary form!. This denies the historical fact that sonata forms are more likely to have evolved from rounded binary than from ternary (for the most obvious examples, look at 1st movements of classical symphonies -- the exposition is repeated as one section, and the development/recap is repeated as one section!.!.!.it's a TWO part form, not three!. See Rosen's book for a better explanation than I can give)
But basically, you're right -- think of sonata form as a "big" rounded binary form, in which the secondary material returns in tonic at the end!.Www@Enter-QA@Com