The Pianoforte Sonata: Its Origin and Development

By John South Shedlock

INTRODUCTORY

I

n history we find certain names associated with great movements: Luther

with the Reformation, or Garibaldi with the liberation of Italy. Luther

certainly posted on the door of the church at Wittenberg his famous The-

ses, and burnt the Papal Bull at the gates of that city; yet before Luther there

lived men, such as the scholar Erasmus, who have been appropriately named

Reformers before the Reformation. So, too, Cavour's cautious policy paved

the way for Garibaldi's brilliant victories. Once again, Leonardo da Vinci

is named as the inventor of chiaroscuro, yet he was preceded by Fra Filippo

Lippi. And in similar manner, in music, certain men are associated with cer-

tain forms. Haydn, for example, is called the father of the quartet; close in-

vestigation, however, would show that he was only a link, and certainly not

the first one in a long evolution. So, too, with the sonata. The present vol-

ume is, however, specially concerned with the clavier or pianoforte sonata;

and for that we have a convenient starting-point-the Sonata in B flat of Kuh-

nau, published in 1695. The date is easy to remember, for in that same year

died England's greatest musician, Henry Purcell.

3 J. S. (JOHN SOUTH) SHEDLOCK

Before studying the history of the pianoforte sonata, even in outline, it is

essential that something should be said about the early history of thesonata.

That term appears first to have been used in contradistinction to cantata: the

one was a piecesounded (suonata, from sonando) by instruments; the other,

one sung by voices. The form of these early sonatas (as they appear in Gio-

vanni Gabrieli's works towards the close of the sixteenth century) was vague;

yet, in spite of light imitations, the basis was harmonic, rather than contra-

puntal. They were among the first fruits of the Renaissance in Italy. But

soon there came about a process of differentiation. Praetorius, in his Syn-

tagma musicum, published at Wolfenbuettel in 1619, distinguishes between

the sonata and the canzona. Speaking generally, from the one seems to have

come the sonata proper; from the other, the suite. During the whole of the

eighteenth century there was a continual intercrossing of these two species;

it is no easy matter, therefore, to trace the early stages of development of each

separately.

Marpurg, in his description of various kinds of pieces in his Clavierstuecke,

published at Berlin in 1762, says: "Sonatas are pieces in three or four move-

ments, marked merely Allegro, Adagio, Presto, etc., although in character

they may be really an Allemande, Courante, and Gigue." Corelli, as will be

mentioned later on, gave dance titles in addition to Allegro, Adagio,

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HH5F7RZJ
• ISBN13: 9798240886621
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Nishelle Books
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"