B eyond ‘N orms and D eformations ’: T owards a T heory of S onata F orm as R eception H istory
2008; Wiley; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/j.1468-2249.2008.00283.x
ISSN1468-2249
Autores Tópico(s)Musicians’ Health and Performance
ResumoAlthough published as recently as 2006, James Hepokoski's and Warren Darcy's much heralded and substantially delayed Elements of Sonata Theory has been a significant presence in the field of music theory and analysis for over a decade.1 Indeed, one reads this monumental work with an unavoidable sense of déjà-lu. Draft copies were frequently quoted in conference papers and articles for several years prior to publication. Also, many of the book's key precepts are aired by both authors in a variety of publications dating from 1992 onwards dealing with works by Beethoven, Bruckner, Sibelius and Richard Strauss amongst others, as well as historical issues such as the reception of Beethoven's symphonies and theoretical concepts including the so-called ‘sonata principle’, ‘rotation’, ‘deformation’ and the ‘medial caesura’.2 Given the intense level of advance exposure for the authors’ ideas and the wealth of insightful precursor texts about sonata form in the High Classical Era, it is not self-evident that there is actually a gap in the existing literature for Elements of Sonata Theory to fill, all the more so since the book was pre-empted by its main market competitor, William Caplin's commanding and elegantly concise Classical Form.3 Nevertheless, closer inspection reveals that the publication of Elements of Sonata Theory is justified at least by its encyclopaedic aspect, by the incorporation of just enough new material (the concluding three chapters on Mozart's concertos in particular) and by the elaboration and refinement of some fundamental premises. Chapters 1 to 4 situate Sonata Theory within the field and introduce its core precepts. Hepokoski and Darcy broadly identify three main strands in existing thought about sonata form: the ‘sonata principle’ elaborated first by Edward Cone and then by Charles Rosen, which stresses the notion that sonata movements dramatise fundamental properties of the Classical Style, especially polarisation and resolution, and which thus requires that non-tonic material in the secondary and closing areas of the exposition be recapitulated in the tonic or else ‘brought into a closer relation’ with it (p. 242); what Mark Evan Bonds terms the ‘conformational view’, propounded initially in nineteenth-century Formenlehren beginning with those of Carl Czerny and A. B. Marx, which essentially sees sonata form as an architectural or tectonic blueprint; and what Bonds labels the ‘generative view’, first expounded in detail by Schoenberg, which regards sonata forms as products of material process.4 In contrast, Sonata Theory claims to transcend all these viewpoints, positing that classical composers are in ‘dialogue’ with a constellation of ‘generic defaults’, which are hierarchically organised according to frequency of usage. When classical composers override ‘standard options’, they ‘deform’ generic conventions. Naturally, the ‘genre sonata form’ is subject to ‘diachronic transformation’, with the result that constellations of norms undergo incremental change: a deformation in, for example, Beethoven can ‘become a lower-level default in Schumann, Liszt or Wagner’ (p. 11). Owing to the progressive reification of sonata ‘defaults’ through theoretical abstraction, departures from the norm in works by nineteenth-century composers are increasingly in dialogue with textbook models. Nevertheless, the authors contend that most of the ‘sonata norms remained in place as regulative ideas throughout the nineteenth century’ (p. vii). In order to construct a convincing analysis of any classical movement, Sonata Theory maintains that one has to identify ‘the essential generic markers’ of sonata works in the High Classical Style. These markers form a hierarchically organised ‘generic layout’, shaped on the highest level by an ‘essential sonata trajectory’ (EST) that comprises the three ‘action zones’ or ‘rotations’ traditionally labelled ‘exposition’, ‘development’ and ‘recapitulation’. The exposition unfolds an ‘essential expositional trajectory’ (EET) and culminates in an ‘essential expositional closure’ (EEC), usually in the form of a perfect authentic cadence (PAC) in a non-tonic key. The EEC is paralleled in the recapitulation by an ‘essential structural closure’ (ESC) that affirms the tonic. The EET breaks down into four principal ‘spaces’– primary, secondary, transitional and closing (P, S, TR and C) – with TR and S being demarcated by ‘a mid-expositional break or medial caesura (MC)’. The EET is ‘launched’ by P, supplied with ‘energy gain’ in TR, ‘relaunched’ by S and closed by C. On a lower level, the four ‘spaces’ within the expositional and recapitulatory action zones are made up of ‘spans’ punctuated by clear PACs, and the spans are themselves normally further broken down into ‘modules’. Since the EET concludes in a non-tonic key, it is a ‘structure of promise’, whereas the full, tonic-directed ESC constitutes a ‘structure of accomplishment’. Many sonata-form movements of course have slow introductions and/or codas, which are classified as ‘parageneric’ areas lying outside sonata space. Hepokoski's and Darcy's view of sonata form is thus ostensibly a mixture of temporal and spatial concerns. It is also predominantly goal-directed – concerned more with endings than beginnings – and tonally orientated, despite the distinction the authors draw between what they term ‘tonal form’ and ‘rhetorical form’, which ‘includes personalized factors of design and ad hoc expression’ (p. 23). Indeed, the EST is basically a reformulation of an interrupted Schenkerian Ursatz.5 Chapters 5 to 13 are devoted to fleshing out the details of the ‘generic layout’. Chapter 14 deals with issues specific to the minor mode and Chapter 15 examines various properties of the ‘three- and four-movement sonata cycle’. The final seven chapters (16 to 23) propose and extensively elaborate a taxonomy of five sonata types. Type 1 (common in slow movements and overtures) comprises only an exposition and a recapitulation with no or minimal link and is often called ‘sonata without development’, ‘exposition-recapitulation’, ‘slow-movement sonata’ or ‘sonatina’ form. Type 2, often labelled ‘binary’ or ‘polythematic binary’ sonata form, lacks a ‘full’ recapitulation and has instead what Hepokoski and Darcy prefer to call a ‘tonal resolution’ occurring in conjunction with secondary or, less commonly, transitional material. Type 3 is the standard sonata model with a development and a recapitulation usually, but not invariably, beginning with the opening theme in the tonic. Type 4 is what is generally known as the ‘sonata rondo’. Finally, Type 5 is the hybrid of ritornello (tutti-solo) principles and other sonata types (usually Type 3) employed in concertos. There are two concluding appendices further elucidating some of Sonata Theory's ‘grounding principles’ and terminology. It is of course impossible to deal with all the intricacies of the authors’ arguments without writing another book, so this essay is confined to pursuing some salient issues: Sonata Theory's generic affiliations; its three ‘fundamental axioms’ of the ‘genre sonata’, ‘rotation’ and ‘deformation’; the taxonomy of five sonata types; and what I have termed the book's ‘neologising impulse’. The main aim of my concluding remarks is to sketch an alternative approach with particular reference to sonata-form works of the first half of the nineteenth century. As its title implies, the model for Elements of Sonata Theory is ostensibly the scientific textbook, a genre that essentially requires in excess of 500 double-column pages (which is what we get – 661 pages including appendices and indices, to be precise).6 The book's generic allegiance is confirmed on the first page of the Preface: ‘From one perspective the Elements is a research report, the product of our analyses of hundreds of individual movements by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many surrounding composers of the time (as well as later composers)’ (p. v). Hence both vocabulary and symbology rely heavily on scientific conventions. As far as the former is concerned, instead of sections and themes or thematic groups, there are ‘actions zones’ and ‘spaces’, and the general discourse is throughout liberally peppered with ‘trajectories’, ‘vectors’, ‘rotations’ and the like. Even the problematic and much-debated term ‘deformation’ is justified by analogy to usage in the physical sciences: ‘“deformation” is descriptive of a certain state of a solid object – a change of shape, a departure from its original, normal, or customary state resulting from the application of a force’ (p. 619). As a general rule, sentences seem constructed to maximise the number of abbreviations and quasi-scientific buzzwords. The description of expositional strategy in Chapter 2 is typical: ‘The large dotted-line arrow in figure 2.1a suggests a broadly vectored trajectory from the start of the exposition to the EEC; the smaller dotted-line arrow below it suggests a subordinate trajectory from the beginning of S to its own point of PAC-closure at the EEC’ (p. 18). As regards symbols, the diagrams themselves of course draw on mathematical graphing conventions (see in particular figures 2.1a and 2.1b on p. 17); all that is really missing is the use of Greek letters. The different categories of ‘medial caesura’ are allocated elaborate designations such as ‘V: PAC MC’; the different ‘spans’ of P, S, TR, C and the rest are designated by superscript integers (‘P1’, ‘P2’ and so on); and within these spans, any smaller ‘modules’ are identified by decimalised superscript integers (‘P1.1’, ‘P1.2’ etc.). A variety of further symbols is employed for different types of large- and small-scale function: ‘’ denotes ‘mergers’ or elisions, subscript letters are added to functional chord symbols (for example, ‘VT’ distinguishes a tonicised dominant from one that is sounded but not tonicised, which is designated ‘VA’), and so forth. The notation becomes particularly involved where concerto (Type 5) movements are concerned, as the additional ritornello-solo aspect of the structure spawns extra colons and backwards slashes: an individual module within ‘P-space’ in the opening orchestral ritornello is, for instance, identified as ‘R1:∖P1.1’. When entire ‘action-spaces’ are summarised, convoluted quasi-mathematical formulae result. For example, the ‘recapitulatory rotation’ of the evidently deceptively approachable Finale of Mozart's Piano Sonata in C major, K. 309 (1777), merits the following near-impenetrable sequence: ‘Prf[S1.4—(’) Episode S1.2—] (’) S1.1 S1.3 S1.4 RT! (’) [Prf!! S1.2!!](’) C [S1.4!!]’ (p. 412). As the Preface leads the reader to expect, scientific metaphor also governs the presentation of key concepts and the evaluation of major ‘generic markers’ within movements. In fact, the initial elucidation of the central idea of a hierarchy of generic defaults and deformations is defined in terms likely to appeal to the most hard-core of computer enthusiasts: For novice-composers, one might wittily fantasize . . . something on the order of an aggressively complex ‘wizard’ help feature within a late-eighteenth-century musical computer application, prompting the still-puzzled apprentice with a welter of numerous, successive dialog boxes of general information, tips, pre-selected weighted options, and strong, generically normative suggestions as the act of composition proceeded. (p. 10) As a result, the chapter on the medial caesura (pp. 23–50), for instance, exudes statistical propriety, establishing a four-tier hierarchy of defaults on the basis of frequency of occurrence in the sample of ‘hundreds of individual movements’ and then defining the structural role of each type of medial caesura partly in percentage terms: ‘Our research suggests that the deployment of the I: HC MC is flexible, occurring typically within the 15–45 percent range’ (p. 37); ‘When selected, the V: HC MC option is typically placed from about 25 to 50 percent (more rarely, 60 percent)’ (p. 39); and so on. This scientific orientation of Elements of Sonata Theory worries me, for it promises rather more than it delivers. To begin with, in a scientific ‘research report’ one would expect a full account of the sample, complete descriptive statistics and an explanation of sampling methodology. In this particular case, the reader could derive reassurance from confirmation that careful consideration had been given to the chronological, geographical and generic distribution in the selection of movements. Given Sonata Theory's emphasis on hierarchies of defaults, one would also expect at least some basic statistical analysis. An examination of modal frequency, standard deviation and regression, for example, would clearly add much valuable definition to the bare percentages quoted with regard to the deployment of different types of medial caesura. Unfortunately, readers are obliged to do the spadework for themselves. The sample can of course be reconstructed from the Index of Works (pp. 639–48). Altogether, 665 sonata movements are cited in the book.7 The sample is heavily weighted towards the period c. 1750–90. That is not necessarily a problem given the book's subtitle, but the small number of movements (59, or 8.8%) written by composers born after 1800 does not obviously imbue with authority the authors’ claim in the Preface that their theory provides a ‘foundation for considering works from the decades to come’ (p. vii); all the more so, since nearly all such pieces referred to are overtures or the first movements of symphonies and more than a quarter of them are by a single composer, specifically Brahms. Even amongst composers born before 1800, Mozart seems unduly prominent; in fact, his 228 movements constitute 34% of the overall total. When one turns to the 87 actual musical examples drawn from sonata movements, the skewed nature of the sample becomes yet more troublesome. Fig. 1 breaks these down by composer and genre. Apart from a single overture, only four genres are represented (concerto, keyboard sonata, symphony and string quartet). Not one movement after Beethoven is actually accorded a musical example and the latest piece to be included is the second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, Op. 68 (1808). A colossal 76% of the examples are taken from Mozart's works, 42% of which are concertos. Tellingly, more than a quarter (26%) come from just six Mozart pieces: Piano Concertos Nos. 9, K. 271 (1777), and 21, K. 467 (1785); the Piano Sonata in F major, K. 280 (1775); Symphonies Nos. 39, K. 543 (1788), and 40, K. 550 (1788); and the String Quartet in C major, K. 465 (1785). Hepokoski's and Darcy's musical examples classified by composer and genre The impression given by all of this is that Sonata Theory has been constructed mainly on the basis of a relatively restricted Mozartian corpus, an impression that is reinforced when one scrutinises pieces cited in the text but not dealt with in any detail. It is not, for instance, evident that the authors conducted independent analyses of any of the seventeen Clementi piano-sonata movements to which they refer. All the analytical information supplied can be found in Leon Plantinga's 1977 monograph, which contains some implausible analytical interpretations.8 By way of an example, Fig. 2 summarises the structure of the Finale of Clementi's Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2 (published 1802). This has a lengthy slow introduction adumbrating the core components of the primary material, shown in Ex. 1a , Ex. 1b . There follows a relatively uncontroversial ‘Allegro’ exposition with clear relative-major secondary and closing areas (bars 452 and 63 respectively) prepared by a minor-inflected medial caesura. The retention of minor colouring for the first bar of the secondary zone creates a slight overlap. The ensuing development eschews the main theme in favour of secondary and transitional material, concluding at bar 101 with the original medial caesura transposed to the dominant of G minor. At bar 1032 the whole of the second theme is then restated in the submediant, concluding with an interrupted cadence, which at bar 125 initiates a transitional extension re-establishing the home dominant. At this point (bar 140), there is an abridged version of the slow introduction followed by a lengthy ‘Presto’ coda (bar 1534) that is launched by a frenetic variant of the main theme. A convincing analysis of this highly individual movement would have to account for the fact that what Hepokoski and Darcy would term a ‘Type 2 sonata with P-based Coda’ enters into dialogue with the ‘deformational’ categories of the ‘non-tonic recapitulation’ and a variant of the ‘introduction-coda’ frame. Plantinga overlooks all that, unfeasibly identifying the ‘Presto’ coda as the recapitulation.9 His interpretation ignores many core concerns of Sonata Theory – particularly in its failure to mark the ‘crux’ (the ‘moment of rejoining the events of the expositional pattern after once having departed from them’; see p. 240) – yet the authors seem simply to assume that Plantinga's analysis is valid and cite Clementi's movement in passing as an example of a piece in which a slow introduction returns before the recapitulation. In fact, Clementi's strategy seems much bolder: to apply Hepokoski's and Darcy's term, the restatement of the slow introduction ‘overwrites’ the tonic return of the primary material, to which it is motivically related. Formal summary of Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2, ii Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2/ii, bars 1–13 Clementi, Piano Sonata in B minor, Op. 40 No. 2/ii, bars 232–331 Admittedly, the heavy concentration on Mozart's music would not matter if this composer's output broadly constituted both a microcosm of the classical repertoire and the central point of reference for later composers. But even a casual perusal of the wider repertoire suggests that in many key respects Mozart was atypical. Two areas given extensive treatment in Elements of Sonata Theory are the concerto and the minor mode. In terms of late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century practice, crucial aspects of Mozart's concerto procedures are anomalous. For example, in the first movements of Mozart's piano concertos his default in the opening ritornello (‘R1’) is to state the secondary material in the tonic: only a single concerto (No. 11, K. 413, of 1782–3) has an R1 foreshadowing the soloist's non-tonic secondary material, and the modulation is cancelled within ‘S-space’. The common practice in the period around the turn of the nineteenth century and beyond was, however, to write a tonally mobile R1, a procedure found in five of John Field's seven piano concertos, five of Dussek's, six of Cramer's, two of Hummel's, two of Steibelt's, four by Moscheles, two by Ries, three by Beethoven, Chopin's No. 2, and many others.10 Similarly, Mozart's concertos appear not to have served as models for major early nineteenth-century composers: Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto No. 1 (1831) conducts an extended dialogue with Weber's First Piano Concerto (1810) and Konzertstück in F minor (1821), whilst Schumann's Piano Concerto (1845) derives much of its first-movement sonata procedure and even thematic material from Field's Piano Concerto No. 7 (1832).11 The situation regarding the minor mode is analogous. Mozart's overwhelming preference is for a i–III exposition answered by a recapitulation in which the relative-major secondary and closing material is recast in the tonic minor. This consistency of approach is, however, unusual. Haydn was much more varied in his minor-mode practice, frequently deploying the major mode for various combinations of secondary and closing material in his recapitulations – the Finale of the Piano Trio No. 19 in G minor, Hob. 15/19 (c. 1794), even answers a i–III exposition with a recapitulation entirely in the major mode. Beethoven's minor-mode procedures are also more pluralistic. Joseph Kerman has identified two principal ‘Beethovenian syndromes’: ‘the hankering of C minor for its parallel major and the tropism of other minor keys toward their minor dominants’.12 Moreover, Beethoven's Coriolan Overture in C minor, Op. 62 (1808), has a ‘three-key exposition’ (described as a type of ‘trimodular block’ or ‘TMB’ in Elements of Sonata Theory) and a non-tonic recapitulation (pp. 120 and 164), and his Egmont Overture in F minor, Op. 84 (1809–10), deploys what Hepokoski and Darcy describe as a deformational ‘non-resolving recapitulation’ (p. 247).13 Kerman considers Beethoven's habits ‘abberrant according to the norms of the Classic period’, but Beethoven actually shares his predilection for i–v expositions with Clementi, who wrote a larger proportion of minor movements relative to his total sonata output than Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven, and who frequently composed three-key expositions, as well as non-tonic and non-resolving recapitulations. In fact, in Clementi's solo keyboard music, his most common response to a i–III exposition is a non-tonic recapitulation.14 In sum, Elements of Sonata Theory is above all a book about Mozart (and particularly his concertos), a fact which renders the authors’ claims of large-scale historical and geographical applicability questionable. Given their sample, it is impossible for the reader to know what to make of broad statements such as the following: the ‘second- or third-tier repertory – encompassing thousands of less ambitious and now largely forgotten works – is where, from the perspective of the five sonata types, numerous hard cases are likely to be found’ (p. 387). Perhaps a more focused agenda and title might have been more appropriate. Significantly, Caplin's Classical Form is more realistically subtitled A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven and adheres closely to its brief. By succumbing to the (predominantly North American) institutional imperative for generalised theories that can be used as the basis for readily classifiable and controllable schools of thought, Hepokoski and Darcy actually seem to have blunted the impact of the valuable observations they have to make about a specific repertoire. The quasi-scientific vocabulary is equally off-putting. Working in an environment dominated by mathematicians, physical scientists and engineers, I hear the words ‘rotation’ and ‘vector’ in a variety of contexts on almost a daily basis. A scientific definition of ‘rotation’ is turning in a plane through a given angle, a description that will hold in any dimension; a ‘vector’ is a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, denoted by a line drawn from its original to its final position.15 It is of course impossible to reconcile either of these definitions with Sonata Theory's EST. In that context, ‘rotation’ would appear merely to denote circular recurrence of a thematic pattern and the ‘vectored trajectory from the start of the exposition to the EEC’ seems to constitute little more than a move from an initial tonic to an emphatic cadence in a secondary key. The patience of readers is further tested when they are asked to conceptualise impossible linguistic compounds such as a ‘generic vector’. Consequently, when working through Elements of Sonata Theory one is constantly forced to scour the ‘Terms and Abbreviations’ section (pp. xxv–xxviii) and the nearest dictionary only to discover that much simpler and more suitable alternative terminology is available. Readers might at least expect the system of symbols and abbreviations to be applied consistently, but even here there are problems. The criteria for allocating the initial integers to zonal labels appear to be reasonably clear, if not uncontestable: ‘P1 will move on to P2 only after a first PAC has been attained’ (p. 71). Unfortunately, inconsistencies soon emerge. In cases where, for example, ‘S-space’ begins with music that ‘seems preparatory to a more decisive … module’, that music is designated as ‘S0’ even if there is no PAC between ‘S0’ and ‘S1’. The situation is yet more confusing when an exposition has an ‘apparent double medial caesura’. In such instances, the standard labels are liable to be replaced by ‘TMB1’, ‘TMB2’ and ‘TMB3’ (denoting the constituent units of a ‘trimodular block’) ‘even though in most cases the whole TMB covers only a single cadential span’ (p. 72). Highlighting the latter discrepancy is not mere pedantry, because the use of two systems of labelling implies that a standard exposition with one medial caesura is fundamentally different from an exposition incorporating a trimodular block. Fig. 3 summarises Hepokoski's and Darcy's analysis of the first-movement exposition of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3 of 1794–5 (pp. 172–5). Bars 25 to 26 are interpreted as a ‘I: HC medial caesura, with GP gap’. The ensuing ‘flawed’ minor-mode cantabile theme (‘TMB1’) soon begins to modulate sequentially and at bar 39 dissolves into transitional rhetoric (‘TMB2’). This leads to a ‘postmedial caesura, V: HC’ at bar 45 and to a ‘new, cantabile theme, now in the radiantly sunlit G major’ at bar 47 (‘TMB3’). In contrast, Tovey designates bars 27–76 as the ‘Second Group (or Transition and Second Group)’, neatly encapsulating the ambiguous status of bars 27–46 without having to invent new terminology.16 There is no real difference of opinion between the two readings: both consider the theme at bar 27 to affect second-theme rhetoric but ultimately to prove ‘unsatisfactory’. Tovey's simple labelling however seems more convincingly to reflect the poietic context. In the late eighteenth-century repertoire, medial caesuras are not restricted to sonata forms and occur in varying numbers within movements. Beethoven was presumably unaware that two centuries later an ex post facto theoretical investigation of the sonata-form practice of his era would make major distinctions on the basis of the precise number of medial caesuras in a piece; nor does it seem likely that he would have thought his strategy in the expositions of the first movements of Op. 2 No. 3 and his next published sonata, Op. 7 in E (1797), to be essentially different, even if the former has two ‘MC-effects’ and the latter only one. Summary of Hepokoski's and Darcy's analysis of Beethoven, Piano Sonata in C major, Op. 2 No. 3/i, bars 1–90 At the smaller modular level, definitions are yet more imprecise. The criteria for distinguishing ‘P1.1’ from ‘P1.2’ and subsequent divisions are sometimes thematic and hence related to Caplin's ‘formal functions’: a pattern of ‘basic idea’ followed by a ‘contrasting idea’ may invoke the succession ‘P1.1, P1.2’. A bewildering variety of other units however receive similar treatment. The reader is actually informed that ‘the practice of decimal designators is no rigid system but merely a conceptual tool to be used by the individual analyst as he or she sees fit’ (p. 72). Once again, there is a mismatch between the substance and the packaging of Sonata Theory. Evidently, beneath the surface Hepokoski and Darcy have an affinity with ‘the style of eclectic analytical writing’, which they identify in the work of Tovey, Rosen and Kerman amongst others, and from which they ostensibly distance themselves. The sense of frustration engendered by the book's non-delivery of implied scientific rigour is magnified by the contradictory tendency, in some dimensions of its rhetorical strategy, towards uncomfortable colloquialism. To begin with, there are the verbal refrains reminiscent of ancient oral narrative traditions. Almost all references to Haydn are prefaced by the epithet ‘witty’, despite the fact that Daniel Chua has argued persuasively that clichéd conceptions of Haydn's wit have no genuine explanatory force with regard to the composer's music.17 (As a rule of thumb, whilst Sonata Theory seems to view Haydn as de facto witty, Mozart has to override a prominent default to exhibit wit; Beethoven is permitted to be witty only in limited circumstances.) The virtually automatic appending of ‘lights out’ to appearances of the words ‘minor mode’ is even more disconcerting, especially to those whose first language is not American English. And the strange talking musical instruments and sonata movements are the very stuff of dark fairytales, if not childhood nightmares. The solo exposition (‘S1’) in the first movement of Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 in D, K. 218 (1775), is particularly disturbing, with the violin and orchestra suddenly striking up a conversation with Commendatore-like overtones: ‘I'm willing to participate on the terms that you have proposed to me. Shall we continue?’ The orchestra responds with pure affirmation, welcoming the soloists into the game with a deal-making handshake and opening the gateway to the more forward-vectored TR that immediately follows: ‘Accepted! Now let's build a sonata. Onward!’ (p. 522) Allied to all this is the authors’ frequent habit of reiterating straightforward concepts. Does someone capable of apprehending the quasi-mathematical formula describing the Finale of Mozart's Sonata K. 309 quoted above really need to be told several times that in Mozart's concertos it is the norm for ‘S-space’ to begin in the tonic in the opening ritornello? Whilst one can appreciate that it is difficult for a co-authored book to maintain a consistency of tone, the sharp rhetorical fluctuations in Elements of Sonata Theory create a sense of confusion about generic identity and the book's intended readership. The problems surrounding the generic affiliations and much of the language of Elements of Sonata Theory have a direct bearing on the trio of central concepts deemed important enough to merit further elucidation in the appendices (pp. 611–21): the ‘genre sonata’; ‘rotation’; and ‘deformation’. The notion of treating sonata form as a genre rather than a ‘mere form’ is not new: it goes back at
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