Musical Form
Sonata
A multi-movement work for one or two instruments - and the name of the form's most important internal structure.
Chamber / Solo
"Sonata" does double duty in classical music, which trips up a lot of newcomers. It names a genre - a kind of piece - and it also names a form, a way of structuring a single movement. The two are related, but they're not the same thing, and it's worth keeping them apart.
The word itself comes from the Italian sonare, "to sound": originally a sonata was simply a piece to be played on instruments, as opposed to a cantata, a piece to be sung.
The sonata as a genre
As a genre, a sonata is a multi-movement piece for a solo instrument (often piano) or a solo instrument with piano (a violin sonata, a cello sonata). It's smaller in scale than a symphony, but follows a similar logic. A typical Classical or Romantic sonata has three or four movements:
- A fast first movement, usually in sonata form (below).
- A slow, lyrical movement.
- Sometimes a minuet or scherzo - a dance-like movement.
- A fast finale, often a rondo.
In a duo sonata, the piano is usually an equal partner rather than an accompanist - Beethoven and Mozart both titled their violin sonatas as being for piano and violin, piano first.
Sonata form
More importantly, "sonata" names sonata form (also called "sonata-allegro form"): a specific structural template, usually used for a piece's first movement, built in three parts.
- The exposition introduces two contrasting musical themes (or groups of themes), the second in a different key from the first - which creates a kind of musical tension waiting to be resolved.
- The development takes fragments of that material and works them through harmonic instability, moving restlessly through different keys.
- The recapitulation brings both themes back, now both in the home key, closing the argument the movement opened with. A coda may round things off.
Sonata form isn't limited to sonatas - it's also the standard first- movement structure for symphonies, string quartets, and concertos, which is why it's worth learning as a pattern rather than as a rule specific to one genre. Once you can hear a theme coming back in the recapitulation, a lot of classical music starts to make sense.
How the sonata changed over time
In the Baroque era, "sonata" covered a wide range of pieces. The trio sonata, for two melody instruments plus a bass line, was one of the most common forms of chamber music, and Domenico Scarlatti wrote 555 short, single-movement keyboard sonatas full of guitar-like flourishes.
The Classical era gave the sonata its familiar shape, with Haydn and Mozart writing dozens of piano sonatas. Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas are often called the "New Testament" of the piano repertoire (with Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier as the Old) - they run from the dramatic "Pathétique" through the "Moonlight" to the vast "Hammerklavier," and changed how far the form could stretch.
Romantic composers kept the genre but loosened the template. Chopin's Second Sonata includes the famous funeral march, Liszt's Sonata in B minor (1853, its manuscript pictured above) fuses all its movements into one continuous span, and César Franck's Violin Sonata (1886) - written as a wedding present for the violinist Eugène Ysaÿe - is one of the best-loved duo sonatas. In the 20th century, Prokofiev's piano sonatas brought the genre a hard, percussive brilliance.
Famous sonatas
- Mozart - Piano Sonata No. 11, with its "Rondo alla Turca" finale.
- Beethoven - "Pathétique" (No. 8), "Moonlight" (No. 14), and "Appassionata" (No. 23).
- Chopin - Piano Sonata No. 2, with the funeral march.
- Liszt - Sonata in B minor.
- Franck - Violin Sonata in A major.
Where to start listening: Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata is the most famous piano sonata and a gentle way in, even though its calm opening movement isn't in sonata form itself - its stormy finale is. For hearing sonata form clearly, try the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major, which he labeled "for beginners."