What is a sonata? Literally translated, it simply means 'instrumental piece'. It is the epitome of instrumental music, and is certainly the oldest and most enduring form of 'pure' and independent instrumental composition, beginning around 1600 and lasting to the present day. Schmidt-Beste analyses key aspects of the genre including form, scoring and its social context - who composed, played and listened to sonatas? In giving a comprehensive overview of all forms of music which were called 'sonatas' at some point in musical history, this book is more about change than about consistency - an ensemble sonata by Gabrieli appears to share little with a Beethoven sonata, or a trio sonata by Corelli with one of Boulez's piano sonatas, apart from the generic designation. However, common features do emerge, and the look across the centuries - never before addressed in a single-volume survey - opens up new and significant perspectives.
From the late eighteenth century onward, composers began to use dynamic signs as an independent layer of expressive meaning, deployed either to reinforce the dynamic tendencies inherent in the music (through melodic or harmonic trajectory, phrasing, texture, etc.) or to counteract them. The study of this phenomenon thus far has been limited to individual observations regarding particular events, such as “surprise dynamics” (for example sudden peaks in volume or a subito piano following a crescendo), with no attempt to reach a systematic understanding. This article elucidates a little-noticed device, the preventive or cautionary dynamic. Some nineteenth-century composers reiterate dynamic instructions in their instrumental music several times in succession. The purpose of these repetitions is to maintain a desired dynamic level that runs counter to the intrinsic ebb and flow of tonal music (the “internal dynamic” as defined by some authors). The device is used most frequently at the extremes of the dynamic spectrum, often to create expressive tension in a poetic/extramusical sense. The first composer to make substantial use of this technique was Beethoven, but it is Mendelssohn who developed and deployed it most fully.
This type of dynamic instruction is most prevalent in large-scale instrumental compositions, such as the symphony, and highlights another aspect of musical practice of the period: composers increasingly had to contend with conductors and performances over which they had no direct control. The increased use of dynamic signs in general and preventive or cautionary dynamics in particular can thus be read as an attempt to assert control over expressive aspects of their compositions that traditionally had been left to performers.
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