The Contredanse, Classical Finales, and Caplin’s Formal Functions

Abstract

Formal designs employing 2, 4, 8, and 16 measure units were basic to eighteenth-century music for dancing. Although the menuet was more flexible, the contredanse was firmly rooted in this “quadratic syntax.” Style statistics, expressed in William Caplin’s terms for formal functions, were derived from music in dance manuals held by the Library of Congress and reproduced on its American Memory website in order to provide the background for analyses of movements from Mozart and Haydn concert music. The style information and analyses, taken together, suggest that Caplin’s distinction between “tight-knit” and “loose” principles of construction may have a source in the active and expressive opposition of music for dancing and (instrumental) music for listening.