Parallel Binary or Tripartite? Formal Hybridisation of Sonata Types in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hepokoski and Darcy's sonata theory subdivides the sonata universe into five basic types. These include not only the familiar sonata without development (type 1), ‘textbook’ sonata (type 3), sonata‐rondo hybrid (type 4) and concerto form (type 5), but also the somewhat less familiar parallel‐binary designs of expanded type 1 and type 2. Many movements follow conventions of only one of these types, but there are also instances that fall in a grey area between the black and white categories. A combination of dialogic sonata theory, Caplinian form‐functional analysis and Schenkerian insights supports the heuristic value of the expanded type 1 and type 2 conceptualisations, in contrast to alternatives such as the reversed recapitulation. Examples from Beethoven (Op. 57), Schubert (D. 810), Schumann (Op. 41, no. 3), Brahms (Opp. 25, 90, 111) and Dvořák (Opp. 81, 87) highlight a distinction between blurred recapitulatory boundaries in avowedly type 3 sonatas and continuity across development and crux in parallel‐binary contexts. The distinction allows for recognition of hybrid forms that are primarily parallel binary but that adopt gestures of recapitulatory overlap observable in type 3 examples. These movements form a continuum, beginning with those housing strong elements of recapitulatory double return and continuing with others in which this type 3 characteristic fades in favour of a more forthright – although possibly still hybrid – expanded type 1 design. Salient passages in the second rotation of these parallel‐binary forms respond to the formal shape and motivic content of the exposition.

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