Form and analysisBeginner3 min read

Bernstein: "What Is Sonata Form?" (Young People's Concerts, 1964)

The lesson

What Is Sonata Form? aired on CBS on November 6, 1964. Thesis: sonata form is a large design in three parts (A–B–A) whose strength comes from two principles, balance and contrast, and whose drama depends on the attraction between the tonic (the home key) and the other keys. Because music flows through time, to follow it you have to know the form in advance: enjoying a theme is easy, but hearing the form turns you into a "real listener."

The examples

  • Mozart, Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter," first movement: at the beginning and end of the lesson; in the final repetition some students hold up signs marking each section.
  • "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star": a simple A–B–A form.
  • Lennon–McCartney, "And I Love Her": a pop example of A–A–B–A, where the first section repeats before the contrast.
  • Bizet, Carmen, Micaëla's aria: a broader vocal ternary form.
  • Mozart, Sonata in C major: used to show each section of sonata form step by step.
  • Prokofiev, "Classical" Symphony, finale: offered as a "test" for the audience, a playful imitation of the 18th-century form.

The form as Bernstein explains it

  • Exposition (A): the themes are presented; the first in the tonic, the second and the closing theme in the key of the dominant. The exposition is often repeated.
  • Development (B): the themes are reworked and travel through distant keys: a "trip around the world." In Mozart's sonata only the concluding theme, a fanfare, is developed.
  • Recapitulation (A): the exposition returns, but everything settles in the tonic.
  • The dramatic metaphor: running away from home, wandering, coming back.
  • Composers break the rules to get effects: in Mozart's sonata the recapitulation begins in F major before returning to C (most likely the Sonata K. 545, in which the recapitulation of the first theme is on the subdominant).

The conclusions

  • Balance comes from the three-part structure, contrast from the tonic–dominant relationships.
  • Whoever understands the A–B–A form and the "magnetic" attraction of the tonic can follow any classical sonata movement.

What a producer learns

  • Sonata form and the pop song share the same idea: present, move away, return transformed. A bridge that goes to another key or another harmonic color, and a return to the chorus in the tonic, is a "development and recapitulation" in miniature.
  • The tonic as a magnet: the farther you stray (modulations, borrowed chords, a bridge on the ♭VI), the more satisfying the return.
  • Repetition serves the listener: repeating the exposition (or the first verse–chorus block) helps memorize the themes before developing them.

Exercise

  1. Listen to the first movement of the "Jupiter" Symphony and note the start times of the exposition, development, recapitulation and coda.
  2. Analyze "And I Love Her" by counting the bars of the A and B sections.
  3. Write a 2-minute piece in A–B–A form: A in C major (verse + chorus), B modulating to Eb or A minor with reworked material, A recapitulated entirely in C with a new ending.

Sonata form, Sonata form: Hepokoski and Darcy's Sonata Theory, Binary, ternary and AABA form, The American 32-bar song form, Bernstein: What Is Melody, Ambiguity and expectation (Bernstein).

Sources

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