Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

520 SONATA
major.
Each movement has usually two distinct
subjects, but occasionally, as is observable in
Haydn's predecessors, the second is not strongly
marked. In a few cases the same subject serves
for both sections. There are a few examples of
his anticipating Beethoven's usage of introducing
clear accessory subjects to carry on the sections.
Haydn illustrates forcibly the usefulness of defining
the main division of the movement, not
only by emphasising the harmonic fommla of
the cadence, but by appending to it a characteristic
phrase or figure, the position of which,
immediately before the full stop, renders it
particularly easy to recognise. The purpose and
fitness of this has been already discussed.
Haydn's cadence-figures are generally peculiarly
attractive, and seem to be made so of set purpose.
As a rule the outlines of his binary movements
are more persistently regular than those of his
rondos. Haydn was the first composer of mark
to adopt the rondo with frequehcy in sonatas.
It had existed in isolation and in suites for a
long while, and examples there are in plenty by
Couperin and other early Frenchmen, who were
much given to it ; and also by various members
of the Bach family, including the great John
Sebastian. But hxmdreds of sonatas, from the
highest to the lowest grade, may be taken at
random with a fair probability of not finding a
single example. The influence of the opera may
probably be here traced again ;
in the set tunes
and dance types as significantly as in the general
structure. However, though Haydn's kind of
rondo is peculiarly familiar and characteristic,
he does not make use of the form in his sonatas
nearly so proportionately often as later composers
do. The proportion in comparison with Mozart
is almost as one to two. The value and appropriateness
of this form is a matter of opinion.
The greatest masters have used it frequently, and
Beethoven with the profoundest effect. The
usage of some other composers may be fairly described
as obtrusively obvious, and it lends itself
with greater readiness than any other plan of its
scope to frivolity and commonplace. Haydn's
subjects are often singularly slight, but his development
of the form is almost always ingenious.
Thus he varies his disposition of the episodes,
so that sometimes the main subject and a single
episodical subject alternate in different circumstances
throughout ; at other times they are
disposed so as to resemble the recapitulation -in
binary form. In the returns of the main theme
he always exercises some consideration. In
hardly any case does he simply repeat the theme
as it stands throughout ; commonly each reappearance
is a fresh variation. Occasionally the
middle repeats are variations, and the first and
last statements simple and identical ; and sometimes
variations of theme and episode alternate.
In all such points his readiness and energy are
apparent, and make his treatment of the form a
model in its particular, line.
The slow movements of all the composers of
sonatas till Beethoven's time are rather artificial
and inclined to pose, owing partly to the weakness
and want of sustaining power in their instruments.
They contain too little of the deep and
liberal feeling which is necessary to make the
highest impression, and too much decorative
finger -play, corresponding no doubt to the
roulades and vocal gymnastics for which operatic
singers found such admirable opportuilities in
the slow beats of adagios. Haydn's management
of such things is artistic, and he occasionally
strikes upon an interesting subject, but hardly
any of the movements approach to the qualities
expected in the ideal slow movement of modern
times.
His distribution of the keys of the movements
is simple. In some of the earlier Sonatas all
three are in the same, or major and minor of the
same key. In more mature examples he adopts
the familiar antithesis of subdominant, which in
later works, preponderates so strongly. In one
case he adopts a very unusual antithesis. This
is in the largest and most elaborate of all the
sonatas, of which the first and last movements
are in E|j, and the middle movement in Et].
One point requires notice in connection with
his violin sonatas, viz. that they are the very reverse
of those of the great school of half a century
earlier ; for inasmuch as with them the violin
was everything, with Haydn it was next to
nothing. Except in obviously late sonatas it
does little more than timidly accompany the
pianoforte. It was in this manner that the
violin, having departed grandly by the front
door in the old style, crept back again into
modern instrumental music by the back. But
small as such beginnings were, Haydn's later and
fuller examples are the ostensible starting-point
of a class of music which in the 19th century
has extended the domain of the solo sonata, by
enlarging its effective scope, and obtaining a new
province for experiment in the combination of
other instruments with the pianoforte upon equal
terms, and with equal respect to their several
idiosyncrasies.
John Christian Bach, the youngest son of
John Sebastian, was Haydn's contemporary and
junior by three years. In his day he was considered
an important composerfor the pianoforte,
and his style is held to have had some influence
upon Mozart. A sonata of his, in Bb, op. 17,
is fluent and easily written, but not particularly
interesting, and thoroughly in the style of the
latter part of the 18th century. It consists of
three movements, all in binary form of the older
type. Another sonata, in C minor, is, for the
date, in very singular form ; beginning with a
slow movement, having a fugue in the middle,
and ending with a "Tempo di Gavotta.' Its
style is not strikingly massive, but there are
many traits in it which show that his parentage
was not entirely without influence. The fugue.