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Sonata rondo form - Structure

Sonata rondo form - Structure: Encyclopedia II - Sonata rondo form - Structure

An explanation of sonata rondo form requires first some preliminary coverage of rondo form and sonata form. Rondo form involves the repeated use of a theme, set in the tonic key, with episodes, each involving a new theme, intervening among the repetitions, like this: A B A C A D A ... Usually the episodes (B, C, D, etc.) are in a different key from the tonic. Sonata form involves an opening section in the tonic, followed by a movement to the dominant key. Together, these musical events form the exposition ...

Sonata rondo form: Encyclopedia II - Sonata rondo form - Structure

Sonata rondo form - Structure

An explanation of sonata rondo form requires first some preliminary coverage of rondo form and sonata form.

Rondo form involves the repeated use of a theme, set in the tonic key, with episodes, each involving a new theme, intervening among the repetitions, like this:

A B A C A D A ...

Usually the episodes (B, C, D, etc.) are in a different key from the tonic.

Sonata form involves an opening section in the tonic, followed by a movement to the dominant key. Together, these musical events form the exposition. The following section is the development, which usually employs material from the exposition, rearranging it in various ways and migrating to musically remote keys. In the recapitulation, the original opening material is repeated in some form, then the material that earlier moved to the dominant is repeated in some form--but this time in the tonic. In abstract terms, then, sonata form looks like this:

[A B']_exp [C"]_dev [A B]_recap

where a single prime (') means "in the dominant" and a double prime (") means "in remote keys".

Occasionally, sonata form includes an "episodic development," which uses mostly new thematic material. An example is the first movement of Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 14, no. 1. The episodic development is often the kind of development that is used in sonata rondo form, to which we now turn.

The simplest kind of sonata rondo form is a sonata form that repeats the opening material in the tonic as the beginning of the development section.

[A B']_exp [A C"]_dev [A B]_recap

By adding in this extra appearance of A, the form reads off as AB'AC"AB, hence the alternation of A with "other" that characterizes the rondo. Note that if the development is an episodic development, then C" will be new thematic material--thus increasing the resemblance of sonata rondo form to an actual rondo.