The Pianoforte Sonata: Its Origin and Development

INTRODUCTORYIn history we find certain names associated with great movements: Lutherwith the Reformation, or Garibaldi with the liberation of Italy. Luthercertainly posted on the door of the church at Wittenberg his famous The-ses, and burnt the Papal Bull at the gates of that city; yet before Luther therelived men, such as the scholar Erasmus, who have been appropriately namedReformers before the Reformation. So, too, Cavour's cautious policy pavedthe way for Garibaldi's brilliant victories. Once again, Leonardo da Vinciis named as the inventor of chiaroscuro, yet he was preceded by Fra FilippoLippi. And in similar manner, in music, certain men are associated with cer-tain forms. Haydn, for example, is called the father of the quartet; close in-vestigation, however, would show that he was only a link, and certainly notthe first one in a long evolution. So, too, with the sonata. The present vol-ume is, however, specially concerned with the clavier or pianoforte sonata;and for that we have a convenient starting-point-the Sonata in B flat of Kuh-nau, published in 1695. The date is easy to remember, for in that same yeardied England's greatest musician, Henry Purcell.3 J. S. (JOHN SOUTH) SHEDLOCKBefore studying the history of the pianoforte sonata, even in outline, it isessential that something should be said about the early history of thesonata.That term appears first to have been used in contradistinction to cantata: theone was a piecesounded (suonata, from sonando) by instruments; the other,one sung by voices. The form of these early sonatas (as they appear in Gio-vanni Gabrieli's works towards the close of the sixteenth century) was vague;yet, in spite of light imitations, the basis was harmonic, rather than contra-puntal. They were among the first fruits of the Renaissance in Italy. Butsoon there came about a process of differentiation. Praetorius, in his Syn-tagma musicum, published at Wolfenbuettel in 1619, distinguishes betweenthe sonata and the canzona. Speaking generally, from the one seems to havecome the sonata proper; from the other, the suite. During the whole of theeighteenth century there was a continual intercrossing of these two species;it is no easy matter, therefore, to trace the early stages of development of eachseparately.Marpurg, in his description of various kinds of pieces in his Clavierstuecke,published at Berlin in 1762, says: "Sonatas are pieces in three or four move-ments, marked merely Allegro, Adagio, Presto, etc., although in characterthey may be really an Allemande, Courante, and Gigue." Corelli, as will bementioned later on, gave dance titles in addition to Allegro, Adagio,