Chapter 10 No.10

Monophonic Style and the Sonata

Corelli and his violin style-C. P. E. Bach and his departures from polyphony-General plan and purpose of the early sonata-Haydn and his two principal themes-Mozart and song-melody-Clementi and the influence of his style-Beethoven's improvements in sonata form-His employment of instrumental music for emotional expression.

THE fundamental difference between the sonata and the polyphonic forms is that the sonata is written in the monophonic style. Polyphony is, indeed, occasionally employed, but the reigning style is that in which a melody, song-like in character and sung by a single part, is accompanied by other parts written in chord harmonies. The necessary repetition of the melodic ideas is made, not by the process of imitation, as in the fugue, but by what is called the cyclical method. In this a tune or a composition always returns to a restatement of the original theme from which it started. We have seen how this melodic style entered instrumental music in the days of Giovanni Gabrieli, and how Domenico Scarlatti transferred to the harpsichord the aria of the opera. From this time forward the monophonic style developed gradually from the initial impulse of the vocal solo. Composers who had not Bach's peculiar insight into polyphonic writing and profound genius for it naturally sought a form which would give their melodies coherence and intelligibility. The rapid development of the violin as a solo instrument was one of the influences in directing them along certain lines of construction. The violin naturally lent itself to a flowing, song-like style, yet it is easy to see how easily such a style would fall into monotony. The early violin composers, in their search after a form which would embrace coherency, variety, and contrast, did much toward assisting piano writers to reach the true method of composing.

Arcangelo Corelli (1653-1713) was the most influential of these early violin composers. He endeavored to unite in his works the attractive and popular features of church music, song, and the dances of his time. The attractiveness of making compositions out of different kinds of dance movements in alternation had presented itself to composers at an early date. Morley, in his "Plain and Easy Introduction to Practical Music" (1597), says: "It is effective to alternate pavanes with galliards, because the former are a kind of staid music ordained for grave dancing, and the latter for a lighter and more stirring kind of dancing." This alternation of dances is what first suggested to composers the plan of following a slow movement with a lively one, or vice versa. As these different kinds of dances differed in rhythm,-the pavanes, for instance, being in common and the galliard in triple measure,-composers grasped the idea that changes in rhythm would heighten the contrast between movements. The one thing that did not seem to be settled at the outset-and that was due to the newness of harmonic as opposed to polyphonic style-was the matter of key contrasts. Sometimes these early writers put all their dance movements in one key, making what we now call a "suite," and sometimes they did not.

Corelli wrote his sonatas most frequently in four movements. The composers who immediately succeeded him wrote more often in three movements, but preserved the alternation of rhythm and tempo. Corelli used only one subject in each movement, and the development of it was of a simple nature compared to the developments found in subsequent works. Later composers found that in order to secure the necessary amount of contrast and variety, together with those points of repose which are essential to artistic form in music, it was necessary to have two principal themes of contrasting nature. The development of these themes was confined to the first movement, while the other movements were less complex in design. The Germans were not wholly idle in advancing the sonata, but it is extremely difficult to ascertain how their work and that of the Italians affected one another. We know that a violin sonata by H. J. F. Biber, published in 1681, shows a well ordered sequence of contrasting movements. The first was a very slow one (largo), in contrapuntal style; the second, a passacaglia (theme and variations); the third, rhapsodical and declamatory; and the fourth, a gavotte. Dr. Parry has pointed out that Biber received his suggestions for the first movement from church polyphony, for the second and fourth from dances, and for the third from operatic declamation. This sonata, however, shows nothing of that methodic repetition of subjects and definite distribution of keys now regarded as indispensable; and in some respects Corelli's sonatas were of a distinctly higher type. Following the admirable analysis of Dr. Parry, I may state here that as early composers gradually perceived the possibilities of the sonata form, they evolved this scheme for their alternation of movement:-

1. Summons to attention, followed by appeal to intelligence through display of design.

2. Slow movement-appeal to the emotions.

3. Finale-lively reaction after emotion.

This treatment of the character of the movements grew out of the crude attempts of the earliest writers and was formulated in the concertos of Sebastian Bach, but more clearly in the piano sonatas of his son Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach. Previous to that, however, something had been done toward a definite arrangement of the distribution of keys. To this Domenico Scarlatti, who has already been mentioned, made some important contributions. His compositions called sonatas have a distinct melodic subject, and this is preserved throughout. His first movements foreshadow the shape which the first movements of the classical sonatas subsequently assumed. These movements are divided plainly into two parts, and each part is repeated. Each of them opens with an announcement of the melodic subject in the tonic key of the sonata. After stating his subject Scarlatti passes into a key closely related to that of the sonata, and gives a bit of what is called "passage work;" that is, florid or ornamental piano writing without a complete tune. The second part embarks upon a brief musical development of the subject by means of simple musical changes in its original shape, then modulates back into the original key, restates the beginning of the movement and comes to an end. One of the peculiarities of his works is that sometimes in the musical development ("working out," as it is called) of his theme he introduces a new melody, different from the first. Later writers caught at this idea and raised this second melody to an importance equal to that of the first.

Scarlatti's great contemporary, Johann Sebastian Bach, did not stand in the direct line of development of the piano sonata. As I have tried to show in writing of clavichord works, his sympathies when composing for a keyboard instrument were governed largely by his immense genius for the organ and his profound insight into the nature and scope of polyphonic composition. Nevertheless, his violin sonatas, the result of a close and admiring study of those of Corelli and Vivaldi, show a leaning toward the modern form. He followed the lines laid down by Corelli. All but one of his violin sonatas are in four movements, the first and third slow, and the second and fourth lively. The slow movements, as one would naturally expect from Bach, are intense in their emotional eloquence. But Bach's manner of development was almost always polyphonic, and this was hostile to the sonata method, which was radically monophonic.

Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach (born, Weimar, March 14, 1714; died, Hamburg, Dec. 14, 1788), the third son of Sebastian Bach, was by nature and artistic taste fitted for the work which his father did not attempt. We have already noticed his theory that one should play the clavichord and write for it in the singing style. It was his feeling for this style and his keen insight into the capabilities of his instrument which made him, though not a composer of genius, a powerful agent in the establishment of the modern sonata form,-so powerful, indeed, that he has been called the father of the sonata. We owe something, however, to the demands of public taste. Music-lovers have usually, with the exception of the few, preferred the purely sensuous beauty of music to its intellectual qualities. They grew weary in those days of the severity of the fugue form; and the composers of the time naturally endeavored to supply them with what they desired, something easily, rhythmically pleasing. For years after Emmanuel Bach's day it continued to be the aim of composers to write with elegance and taste.

Emmanuel Bach excluded polyphonic writing from his sonatas, and adopted a style entirely monophonic. He contributed toward the development of the sonata in the direction of clearness and symmetry, and he insisted upon a well-regulated contrast of keys and of the characters of the different movements. In short, he established the outline of the sonata, with the exception of duality of themes, determined the direction in which it was to develop, and gave it a powerful impulse. The first sonatas in which Emmanuel Bach showed his ability were six published in 1742, and dedicated to Frederick the Great. [10.1] The opening movement of each is in the sonata form, as it existed then. The principal theme is properly announced, there is a short section of "working out," and a conclusion with the principal theme in the tonic key. In the working out the composer does not use the principal key, and thus in returning to it in his conclusion gets the effect of repose. In at least one of these sonatas, the second, there is a clearly marked second theme in the first part. There are touches of humor here and there in these sonatas, and some of the slow movements are full of feeling. The finales are all light and lively.

[10.1] The author desires to acknowledge his indebtedness at this particular point to "The Pianoforte Sonata," by J. S. Shedlock.

Emmanuel Bach is best known by six collections of sonatas and other compositions published at Leipsic between 1779 and 1787. In these sonatas the composer's resolute and final departure from the old polyphonic style is fully demonstrated. To enter wholly into the monophonic method of writing was no small undertaking, and we meet with many evidences of effort in these works. But the "working out" part of the sonata is always monophonic. The composer takes passages or phrases from his original melody, and treating them with changes of pitch, harmonic modulation, and bits of passage-writing, founded on figures previously used in the statement of the theme, he makes a musical exposition of his original idea. This is precisely what later composers did, but they had better command of the monophonic style, and hence produced better music than Emmanuel Bach.

OPENING OF A MOVEMENT BY E. BACH, SHOWING

CHANGE FROM POLYPHONIC STYLE.

The reader should now be in a position to understand that it is expected that at least one of the three or four contrasting movements of a sonata should be in what is called sonata form. This is almost always the first movement, in accordance with the general design of movements already given. This movement consists of three parts, which may be called proposition, discussion, and conclusion. The propositional part proposes a theme or themes; the discussion subjects the theme or themes to every device of musical treatment; and the conclusion restates the themes in their original form and brings the movement to a restful finish. Up to the point at which we have now arrived composers proposed, as a rule, only one theme for discussion. Occasionally a second was introduced, but it seems to have been merely episodal. We now come to the time when two themes were employed systematically, and from that time dates the establishment of the complete outline of the present sonata form. All the changes since made are in details. The composer by whom this important work was done was Haydn.

Josef Haydn was born April 1, 1732, in Rohrau, Austria. He studied first at home and afterward at Vienna. In 1759 he became conductor of a small orchestra maintained by Count Morzin, and in 1760 he married a wigmaker's daughter, who had been his pupil. In 1761 Haydn became conductor of the orchestra of Prince Esterhazy at Eisenstadt, where he remained thirty years industriously composing. He became acquainted with Mozart, for whom he entertained the highest admiration. In 1790 he visited London and was received with great enthusiasm, so that he made a second visit in 1794. He died May 31, 1809, eighteen years before the death of Beethoven, and four years before the birth of Wagner. His music, therefore, brings us into close connection with the present period. His music is accessible to players of the piano, and there are good editions of his sonatas.

Haydn has been called the father of the symphony and the string quartet, and his most important compositions are in these departments. But a symphony is simply a sonata for orchestra, and a quartet is one for four instruments. Hence we shall find that Haydn's piano sonatas show the same advances in form as his symphonies and quartets. In the first movements of three of his earliest sonatas (op. 22, 24, and 29) he uses in the propositional part two principal themes, wholly different from one another. He did not, however, in the works of his middle life follow this plan, but in his English symphonies he used second themes invariably and in a manner which allows no room for doubt as to his definite purpose. The form of his first movements is clear and symmetrical. It is in three parts, the proposition, discussion, and conclusion being plainly distinguished. The working out part is shorter and simpler than those found in later sonatas, such as Beethoven's. But Haydn's first movements convince the hearer of their claims to consideration as works of art on lines of design carefully planned. The systematic use of the second theme was adopted by all subsequent composers, and was the means of raising the sonata from an experiment to the most satisfactory and convincing of all musical forms.

In Haydn's three-movement sonatas the appeal to the intelligence by the opening allegro is always followed by an appeal to the emotions in a slow movement, with broad melody and harmony and much sentiment. His finales are always bright and lively, and frequently sparkle with gayety. In form the finale is usually a rondo, an early cyclical form in which a single melodic subject is periodically repeated, the repetitions being separated by passages of new matter. When Haydn wrote a sonata in four movements, he introduced as the third the minuet, a piece of music in dance rhythm. Emmanuel Bach had used this form in one or two of his sonatas, but it is easy to see that the idea was originally suggested by the alternation of different kinds of dances in the archaic sonatas of Biber and Corelli. The minuet, being a graceful and elegant dance in triple rhythm, formed a most excellent bridge between an emotional slow movement and a jocund finale. The minuet movement consists, as a rule, of two parts, called minuet and trio. In the old dance it was customary to give relief to the first melody by a second, always written in three-part harmony and hence called "trio." This plan, except the adherence to three-part harmony, was followed by the artistic composers when they adopted the minuet as part of the sonata. In addition to what has been said, two important facts must be noted. Haydn was intimately acquainted with the simple, fluent melody of Italian music, and he was not acquainted with Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavichord." The result was that his themes are all essentially song-like in character. They are more extended and more definite in shape than Emmanuel Bach's, and they helped to fix more firmly the distinctive character of monophonic composition.

After Haydn was born, and before he died, Mozart lived. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born at Salzburg, Jan. 27, 1756. He received his early tuition from his father, an excellent musician, and speedily developed into a "wonder child." He made several tours through Europe as a pianist, but finally settled in Vienna, where he married and spent the remainder of his brief life in pouring out operas, quartets, songs, sonatas, and other compositions, some of which were certainly made to sell, but all of which display something of his marvellous genius. It cannot fairly be said of Mozart that he contributed a great deal that was new to the mere technics of sonata writing. Mozart had little of the spirit of the explorer, and less of that of the reformer. He was content to take musical forms as he found them and instil into them a vitality which was inseparable from serious attempts at composition. Some of his works, indeed, show the evil results of that fatal facility which is a menace to art; but nearly all of them display a fecundity of invention, a grace and freedom of style, and a sense of artistic elegance which did much to influence subsequent writers.

Mozart's piano sonatas are worthy of the pianist's attention, but they cannot be said to have done anything toward the advancement of the form which Haydn's did not. Mozart learned the sonata form from Haydn's works. He gave something back to his teacher, but it was chiefly in the shape of suggestions as to instrumental treatment, for Mozart was a master pianist, and Haydn was only a respectable performer. Mozart's sonatas show wonderful cleverness in adapting to the idiom of the piano the vocal style of the contemporaneous Italian opera, of which Mozart was the finest composer. His C minor sonata, written in 1784, is his greatest piano work. It is so fine that, except for the comparative baldness of its instrumental style, it ranks with the works of Beethoven's middle period.

The reader must bear in mind the important fact that instrumental music, pure and simple, was still young, and that composers were chiefly engaged in developing musical beauty. The technics of instrumental writing were not sufficiently advanced to admit of high emotional expression. The reader will remember that in the old schools of church counterpoint the technics of the art were developed by Okeghem, after which Josquin des Prés showed how to write beautifully, and the masters of the last period discovered how to make beauty go hand in hand with expression. So the early writers of the sonata were chiefly engaged in experimenting with the technics of their new form and the instruments for which they wrote, and this paved the way for Haydn and Mozart, when once the former had established the sonata form, to seek for pure beauty. This they found, and Mozart's works in particular abound with it. The time was now at hand when the sonata form was to be made the vehicle for the expression of the most profound human emotion. But before it could achieve that end, something had to be added to its technic and its organization. Part of this addition was made by Clementi.

Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) was born before Beethoven and died after him. His works show that he at first influenced Beethoven but was afterward influenced by him. Clementi's masculine treatment of the piano, which we have already noticed, went far toward leading Beethoven away from the thin style of Haydn and Mozart. There are many passages in Clementi's early sonatas which are similar in construction to passages afterward written by Beethoven. Again, Clementi extended and elaborated the "working out" part, and sometimes introduced into the body of a movement phrases from its introduction. But the works of Beethoven speedily superseded those of Clementi, and it is to these we must now turn our attention. Fortunately they call for only brief discussion, for Beethoven's sonatas are more remarkable for their content than for their form.

Ludwig van Beethoven was born at Bonn, Dec. 16, 1770. He studied music in his native city and in Vienna, receiving a few lessons and much encouragement there from Mozart. He was for a time in the service of the Elector of Cologne, but in 1792 he went to Vienna to study under Haydn, and there he finished his life, dying March 26, 1827. In Beethoven's youth the technics of sonata composition had reached the point of complete beauty, and the young man soon set about making the sonata the vehicle of personal expression. In doing so he introduced some improvements into the form. First of all he leaped to a greater freedom in the use of keys. He not only wandered into more remote keys than his predecessors within the limits of a movement, but he made wider changes of key in passing from one movement to another. He elaborated the slow introduction which preceded many of his first movements (by no means all) and made it of high significance. He constructed the passage work leading from the first theme to the second out of material taken from the first theme, thus making a logical connection. He sometimes introduced in the "working out" part new thoughts, derived from the original matter. He made intentional and highly expressive use of the practice of running one movement into another without a pause, a device which had been employed by Emmanuel Bach for purely musical effect. Beethoven used it for purposes of emotional expression. The complete first movement form, as developed by Beethoven, is as follows:-

First Part.

Slow introduction (not always used): first theme, in the tonic: connecting passage: second theme, in a related key: concluding passage. [Repeat first part.]

Middle Part.

"Working out"-a free fantasia on both themes, developing all their musical possibilities and dramatic expression by devices of instrumental color, harmony, counterpoint, etc.

Third Part: Recapitulation.

First theme, in the tonic: connecting passage: second theme, in the tonic: coda.

In place of the old minuet movement Beethoven introduced the scherzo.

Scherzo means joke, and the scherzo was originally a light, genial composition not to be taken seriously. Haydn in writing his minuets took the stateliness out of their movement and imbued them with humor. Beethoven, preserving the form and rhythm of the minuet, so changed its tempo and its melodic style that it became a new kind of writing, which he called scherzo. But from a merely jocular movement this grew in his hands to be one of grim humor, and even, as in the C minor symphony, of mystery and awe.

The slow movement usually follows the first movement. If there are four movements, the scherzo is generally third, and the finale, instead of being merely bright and lively, is raised to an emotional importance nearly as great as that of the first movement, which it frequently follows in form. Beethoven's music has been divided into three styles, that of his earliest works showing distinctly the influence of Haydn and Mozart. Then comes a transition, to which the "Kreuzer" sonata and the "Eroica" symphony belong, and after that comes the second period, containing the works of the master's maturity, such as the piano sonata in D minor, the "Appassionata," and the fifth and seventh symphonies. The third style embodies the sorrow and bitterness of Beethoven's unhappy last years, and includes the ninth symphony and the last five piano sonatas.

In the presence of Beethoven's music I always feel the helplessness of analysis or critical study. It is useless to try to reveal the why and wherefore, but it cannot be denied that Beethoven's sonatas convey to the hearer not only the presence of an imposing personality, but the conviction that the expression of the music is not simply individual, but general. There is a breadth and a depth to the utterance of these works which belong not to one man but to humanity. Beethoven succeeded in introducing into instrumental music that direct, sweeping, overwhelming proclamation of emotion which had previously been regarded as the exclusive property of the singer's voice. Beethoven's music is essentially the dramatization of pure tones. His intense expression was not the result of accident. He hungered for it and studied the means of imparting it to his music. In doing so he solidified the structure of the sonata in such a way that he made it the most symmetrical, highly organized, and yet elastic of all musical forms, and paved the way for the whole school of romantic composers who followed him, and who tried not only to make music express the great elementary emotions, as he did, but also to make it tell complete stories. Their purposes are best exemplified in their orchestral works, and I must defer discussion of them till after the reader has accompanied me in a review of the development of the orchestra and orchestral music.

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