Early Double and Triple Returns in Galant Music

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although often described as a double return, the ‘point of recapitulation’ is perhaps more properly understood to demarcate a triple return: the simultaneous reappearance of the movement's home key, the reappearance of the movement's main theme and the onset of the final rotation through the movement's thematic plan (i.e. the underlying thematic material first presented within the exposition). When these three events coincide at the start of the movement's final, cadence‐delineated section – as they often do – they combine to convey a strong sense of arrival. Analytic challenges arise, however, when these events appear at different moments or in the middle of a larger section. Such situations are common in Galant movements, especially those in which the main theme returns in the home key shortly after the onset of the movement's second half, as is often the case. The resulting expressive and structural conflicts can often be highlighted more effectively by appealing to concepts of musical form as described in treatises published around the time these works were composed rather than attempting to designate a single recapitulation ‘space’ within these movements.

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