Musical Form (Part IV)

By Merryn Brose

The Sonata, Concerto and Symphony before Haydn & Mozart

The articles on Form 1,2, and 3 gave an elementary explanation of the main forms commonly used in movements found in the, Sonata, Concerto and Symphony and from about the time of Mozart and Haydn. However, these terms for compositions were used before 1770 but their meanings were different.

Originally the term 'sonata' was applied to something 'sounded', as opposed to 'cantata' something sung. There were church sonatas (sonata da chiesa) and chamber sonatas (sonata da camera). In each case they consisted of four movements, beginning with a slow movement and alternating slow, quick, slow, quick. The second movement of the church sonata was freely fugal whilst that of the chamber sonata was perhaps an allemande or a courante. In both cases the third movement was the tender one and the fourth movement was more lively --- a typical movement in the chamber sonatas was maybe a gigue or a gavotte.

J.S Bach wrote sonatas but it is difficult to see the difference between a sonata and a suite as both contained many dance forms. His violin sonatas, however, followed the Corelli's plan of four movements, slow, quick, slow, quick. Domenico Scarlatti wrote one movement sonatas whose opening features did little more than establish the general style of the movement.

In the period from about 1600 to about 1725 there was much experimentation, and the composer who went the furthest in establishing what we know as sonata form, i.e. Exposition --- consisting of two contrasting tunes, Development, and Recapitulation (see Form - Part 2) was J.S.Bach's son Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach (1714-1788). Mozart is quoted as saying of him: 'He is the parent, and we are the children'. The term 'concerto' originally simply meant 'concerted' playing, and so the concerto from Corelli to Bach was a form in which two bodies of instruments --- the ripieno, full body (usually of strings) and the concertino --- a smaller body of solo instruments was heard and the interplay between the two groups was the concerto. This type of concerto is known as the 'concerto grosso'.

A good example of this type of music is the fifth Brandenburg Concerto by J.S.Bach, in which the concertino is a flute, violin and harpsichord, while the ripieno is a string orchestra. The word 'symphony' means, 'sounding together'. In the Middle Ages it was applied to any consonant combination of two notes. Schutz in Germany uses it on the title page of his Symphoniae Sacrae, which are the 'sounding together' of voices and instruments ---vocal solos or duets, with the instrumental parts treated on equal terms with the voices. Bach, a century later, uses it for a 'sounding together' of strands of tone, the original name for his three-part Inventions being Symphonien.

In the 16th century the term was applied to the instrumental interludes in cantatas, opera and oratorio. Hence, Handel's 'Pastoral Symphony' from his Messiah (1742). About 1700, Italian opera overtures (called sinfonias) were in the form of three movements fast, slow, fast. These overtures were often performed as concert pieces, and Italian composers such as Tomasini Albinoni, Giovanni Battista Sammartini and Antonio Vivaldi began writing independent sinfonias in the same format. Because symphonies soon came to use sonata form in the first movement and often in others as well, the symphony gradually developed thematically, harmonically and emotionally to the form that we understand the word 'Symphony' today (i.e. the orchestral sonata).

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Merryn Brose is a presenter on 5MBS.