Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge What ties the movements of a sonata or symphony together?

I can understand the ties, when there's a repeated motif of some kind...

But generally, it seems to me that movements are separate pieces of music... I don't see the logic of grouping these pieces together...

Is there something to listen for, to make sense of this?

The idea, as I understand it and experience it, is that multi-movement pieces like sonatas and symphonies are intended to feel like they belong together, and in the sequence in which they are written. They are a series of musical events that work together to make up a particular musical experience which won't happen otherwise.

But, of course, that doesn't mean that individual movements will always sound somehow incomplete without the other parts of the work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

For examples of some that don't work alone - to my ear, most of the scherzos from Beethoven's piano sonatas pretty much don't work as standalone pieces. But they work beautifully in their intended context. On the other hand, some of the other movements from Beethoven piano sonatas do seem to work fairly well as standalone pieces, I think. Goodness knows, the first movement of the "Moonlight" is probably better known as a separate piece than as part of a greater whole (which doesn't mean the greater whole isn't greater)

But the effect of putting movements together in a way that makes musical sense isn't something I could describe very well in words.

Thanks for the reply! Very helpful.

That question has occurred to me as well. It's my understanding that some composers did tie together movements with repeated motifs, but that it wasn't all that common for them to do so.

The idea that movements should sound as though they belong together makes sense, but pre-supposes one's ears are trained to hear how the movements mesh together. My ears are not well-trained enough to hear that, not at this point.

Any further discussion?

I admit to being confounded by this question too. When I began to write a group of Sonatinas I started the search to understand what the connections were between movements of a symphony or sonata. I rarely found a connecting "motif" ... and desperately grabbed onto the idea of a common key signature. Haydn's sonatas seemed to obey that pattern with one of the middle movements being in the minor mode. Or vice versa. I grasped at that straw ... but Beethoven ignored it. And I found myself floundering around again looking for an answer.

The only connection I can see is that normally the second movement is a sudden release of the tension and drama of the first movement ... a contrasting quiet reflective mood. And the last movement seems to convey exuberance more than drama. But then of course there will be hundreds of exceptions.

I'm still floundering.

I agree, this seems to be the general idea... but for me, I could very well replace the second movement of one piano sonata... with the slow movement of another sonata...

Or maybe another day, I'll want to hear fast movements after each other...

I mean... the grouping of movements together seems like it's the job for the listener, or the program director...

I really don't lose anything if I don't listen to a sonata or symphony with its movements out of sequence, or with movements replaced etc...

Yes, you do lose something, and that is the sequence of key relationships, which is important. They are part of the "meta-" structure in multi-movement works, and are carefully planned.

I use a 3-ring binder.

I've also been confounded by this question at times. Having composed some multi-movement works I'll say that I intended each movement to be part of an overall concept of expression. In my mind the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. In other words, the whole was an experience that covered a particular concept from several viewpoints and the fast and slow movements expressed those different viewpoints. Sometimes there were motivic commonalities between the movements, but not always.

Think Mahler's Second Symphony. The first performance of just the first three movements was not well received. When the whole piece was performed it was a fantastic success.

Beethoven usually has a lot of ties between the movements. They are sometimes harmonic, sometimes rhythmical or sometimes thematic. Though mostly they are not very obvious, you have to dig a bit to find them. Here's one example from op. 13:



In the same sonata the secondary theme (1st movement, bar 51->) opens with the same four note motif as the rondo, and there's some other connections as well. Probably a lot more that I haven't found...

I think small ties like that, no matter if they are too subtle for the listener to notice, can go a long way in making a multi-movement work feel like a whole, rather than a bunch of separate pieces.

Greetings,
It is my understanding that most sonatas were not written from the first note forward, but, rather, were a collection of musical ideas that a composer had figured out how to hook together into a greater whole. Taking one movement out and letting it stand alone as a piece of music is ok, but knowing what its part is in the whole composition often lets us hear with more perception. The different sections are intended to stealthily move the listener away from the comfort zone, into engaging brilliance and somber reflection before returning to the comforting harmony of consonance. Tying all this together means taking small enough steps so that the attention of the audience is kept on the thread. These steps are of tempo, dynamics,range, and tempering.


Choice of key was critical for composing in the sonata-allegro format, particularly if we consider the effects of unequal tempering. In terms of manipulating the audience's emotions, the sonata takes us on a harmonic journey, moving us away from the home key with a promise of return. Consonant keys are usually more sedative than the remote ones containing wide thirds. these wider intervals are stimulative, and composers don't usually leave us hanging out with them, instead, returning us back home.

Once we hear something in one key, and are then led down the path into more remote keys, where the dissonance is greater, we start getting an urge to go back to the more consonant atmosphere. The trick is to take us as far into the dissonance as possible without us knowing it, then the resolution has a stronger effect. This is the tension/release component of unequal tunings, and the composers of Beethoven's day certainly seem to have written with them in mind.

For instance; the 2nd mvt. of the "Pathetique", in a well-tempered tuning, is a dissonant, dreary, lament. It is not a sweet, innocent, anything. You want pathos? LVB will deliver that if you have a tuning in which the key of Ab is appropriately tense. It really sets the stage for the last mvt. to show itself. You will find that most sonatas have the development section in the most remote keys possible. There is a reason for that.

Looked at from the perspective of rising and falling dissonance causing rising and falling levels of stimulation in the listener, sonatas are a harmonic tour. They are held together by the coherent rising of dissonance,hence, stimulation, before resolving to consonance, creating an emotional payback via satisfying the subliminal pulls to return to the home key.

Regards,

I'd echo Steve Chandler's phrase of "each movement to be part of an overall concept of expression."

Psychologically, I also think one would be more comfortable (or even compelled) to reuse material across movements of "a multiple movement work" than one would for "different works."