Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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RONDEAU RONDO 135
popularity in his own country, at Vienna, and
in Spain, Portugal, and America, as an able
artist in the same line of parts as his brother
—unlike him in personal appearance, being a
tall thin man, but like him in the capability
He
of his face for great variety of expression.
appeared in England on Dee. 17, 1836, at the
Lyceum, as Cardenio in Donizetti's ' Furioso,'
and also sang for a few nights at the King's
Theatre, as well as at the Philharmonic, Feb.
27, 1837. He reappeared in 1860 at Her
Majesty's, as Rigoletto, Masetto, and Griletto
(' Prora d' un Opera Seria'). He retired from
public life after a career of thirty-five years, and
settled in Milan as a teacher of singing. ^ a. o.
RONDEAU. A French name for a short
poem of six or eight lines, containing but two
rhymes, and so contrived that the opening and
closing lines were identical, thus forming as it
were a circle or round. The name has come to be
used in music for a movement constructed on a
somewhat coiTesponding plan. [See Rondo.] g.
RONDO (Fr. Sondewu). A piece of music
having one principal subject, to which a return
is always made after the introduction of other
matter, so as to give a symmetrical or rounded
form to the whole.
From the simplicity and obviousness of this
idea it will be readily understood that the
Rondo-form was the earliest and most frequent
definite mould for musical construction. For
a full tracing of this point see Form, vol. ii.
p. 74, etc. In fact the First Movement and the
Rondo are the two principal types of Form,
modifications of the Rondo serving as the
skeleton for nearly every piece or song now
written. Marx {Allgemeine MusiJeUhre) distinguishes
five forms of Rondo, but his description
is involved, and, in the absence of any
acknowledged authority for these distinctions,
scarcely justifiable.
Starting with a principal subject of definite
form and length, the first idea naturally was to
preserve this unchanged in key or form through
the piece. Hence a decided melody of eight
or sixteen bars was chosen, ending with a full
close in the tonic. After a rambling excursion
through several keys and with no particular
object, the principal subject was regained and
an agreeable sense of contrast attained. Later
on there grew out of the free section a second
subject in a related key, and still later a third,
which allowed the second to be repeated in the
tonic. This variety closely resembles the firstmovement
form, the third subject taking the
place of the development of subjects, which is
rare in a Rondo. The chief difference lies in
the return to the first subject immediately after
the second, which is the invariable characteristic
of the Rondo. The first of these classes is the
Rondo from Couperin to Haydn, the second
1 We are indebted to him aaid Mr. J. C. Griffith of Sydney for
much of the above information with regard to hie family.
and third that of Mozart and Beethoven. The
fully developed Rondo-form of Beethoven and
the modern composers may be thus tabulated :
2nd sub. g J -^
1st sub. (domi- 1st sub. Srd sub. 1st sub. „„„;„? Coda,
(tonicj.
nant).
In the case of a Rondo in a minor key, the
second subject would naturally be in the relative
major instead of in the dominant.
One example — perhaps the clearest as well
as one of the best known in all music—will
suffice to make this plan understood by the
untechnical reader. Taking the Rondo of
Beethoven's 'Sonate Pathetique' (op. 13) we
find the first subject in C minor :
this is of 17^ bars in length, and ends with a full
close in the key. Six bars follow, modulating
into E|?, where we find the second sulg'ect, which
is of unusual proportions compared with the first,
consisting as it does of three separate themes :
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After this we return to the first subject, which
ends just as before. A new start is then made
with a third subject (or pair of subjects) in
Ab:—
A
this material is worked out for twenty-four bars
and leads to a prolonged passage on a chord of
the dominant seventh on 6, which heightens
the expectation of the return of the first subject
by delaying it. On its third appearance it is
not played quite to the end, but we are skilfully
led away, the bass taking the theme, till, in
the short space of four bars, we find the whole
of the second subject reappearing in C major,
Then, as this is somewhat long, the first subject
comes in again for the/oMrtA. time and a Coda
formed from the second section of the second
subject concludes the Rondo with still another
'positively last appearance' of No. 1.
Beethoven's Rondos will all be found to
present but slight modifications of the above
form. Sometimes a ' working-out ' or development
of the second subject wUl take the place