| The first movements of Haydn's keyboard sonatas have never been studied from the perspective of contemporaneous notions of sonata form. The eighteenth-century theorists, Sulzer, Riepel, Daube, Kollmann, Vogler, Galeazzi and Koch, make concordant contributions on this subject. In sum, they describe what we call sonata form in terms of harmonic design (Tonordnung) and melodic phrase structure (Tactordnung). Through the development of the principal idea, the structural framework is transformed into a complete composition.;The aforementioned aspects comprise the criteria by which the expositions and developments of the first movements of Haydn's keyboard sonatas are examined (in Part II). Haydn's earliest pieces closely reflect the "norm" as described by Koch. The harmonic center of each interpunctischer Haupttheil in the exposition and each phrase in the development section is hardly challenged by unstable elements. By the late 1760s, the rigorous expression of the tonic in the principle idea is relaxed, due to the more intensive melodic activity that now also involves the left-hand part. In the early 1770s, the basic figures gradually admit a variety of unstable factors. The tonal clarity (manifested at the level of phrase, segment and figure) of early years allows ambiguities and digression to regions of increasing distance from the tonic. By the 1790s, Haydn's compositional style far transcends that which Koch describes. The striking states in Haydn's artistic development are represented by the four pieces analyzed in Chapter 4 of Part II.;Daube, Galeazzi and Reicha treat development as the permutation and variation of a figure. Koch, elaborating concepts introduced by Riepel, explains development in terms of expansion of the phrase structure. He presents a comprehensive set of development techniques, subsumed under Verlangerungsmittel. The theorists are almost unanimous in their exhortation of "unity and variety," symmetry and proportion at every step of the compositional process. Part I of this study is devoted to an investigation of eighteenth-century dicta on the structural framework of sonata form, the role of the principal idea and the methods by which it generates the movement. |
