Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SONATA 529
fairly appropriate to the style of movement,
and are kept well in hand, so that on the whole,
in these two cases, the Impression conveyed is
consistent with the sonata-character. In scherzos
Chopin was thoroughly at home, and moreover
they represent a province in which far more
abandonment is admissible. In both sonatas
they are successful, but that in the Pianoforte
Sonata is especially fascinating and characteristic,
and though the modulations are sometimes
rather reckless the main divisions are well
proportioned, and consequently tlie general
etfect of the outlines is sufficiently clear. The
slow movements of both are very well known ;
that of the Pianoforte Sonata being the Funeral
March, and the other being a kind of romance
in Chopin's own free manner, which is familiar
to players on the violoncello. The last movement
of the Pianoforte Sonata is a short but
characteristic outbreak of whirling notes, in
general character not unlike someof his Preludes,
and equally free and original in point of form,
but in that respect not without precedent among
the last movements of early masters. In the
mind of the composer it possibly had a poetical
connection with the Funeral March. The other
last movement is a free kind of rondo, and
therefore more consonant with the ordinary
principles of form, and is appropriate, without
being so interesting as the other movements.
The total effect of these sonatas is naturally of
an entirely different order from that of the
earlier types, and not so convincing in oneness
as the works of great masters of this kind of
form ; they are nevertheless plausible as wholes,
and in details most effective ; the balance and
appropriate treatment of the two instruments
in the op. 65 being especially noteworthy.
The other sonatas for pianoforte, in C minor
and B minor, are more unequal. The first
appears to be an early work, and contains some
remarkable experiments, one of which at least
has value, others probably not. As examples
may be mentioned the use of 5—4 time throughout
the slow movement, and the experiment
of beginning the recapitulation of the first
movement in Bl> minor, when the principal key
is C minor. In this sonata he seems not to
move with sufficient ease, and in the B minor,
op. 58, with something too much to have the
general aspect of a successful work of the kind.
The technical devices in the latter as in the
others are extremely elaborate and effective,
without being offensively obtrusive, and the
ideas are often clear and fascinating ; but as a
complete and convincing work it is hardly
successful.
Sonatas which followed implicitly the old
lines without doing more than formulate subjects
according to supposed laws do not require any
notice. The mere artificial reproduction of forms
that have been consciously realised from observation
of great works of the past without importing
VOL. IV
anything original into the treatment, is often
the most hopeless kind of plagiarism, and far
more deliberate than the accidents of coincidence
in ideas which are obvious to superficial
observers.
As examples of independent thought working
in a comparatively untried field, Mendelssohn's
six sonatas for the organ have some importance.
They have very little connection with the Pianoforte
Sonata, or the history of its development
for Mendelssohn seems to have divined that the
binary and similar instrumental forms of large
scope were unsuitable to the genius of the Instrument,
and returned to structural principles of a
date before those forms had become prominent
or definite. Their chief connection with the
modern sonata type lies in the distribution of
the keys in which the respective movements
stand, and the broad conti"asts in time and
character which subsist between one division or
movement a)jd another. Different members of
the group represent different methods of dealing
with the problem. In the large movements
fugal and contrapuntal principles predominate,
sometimes alternating with passages of a decidedly
harmonic character. In movements
which are not absolute fugues the broad outlines
of form are commonly similar to those already
described as exemplified in Bach's Sonatas, and
in the first and last movements of his Italian
Concerto. This form in its broadest significance
amounts to a correspondence of well-defined
sections at the beginning and end, with a long
passage of ' free fantasia, ' sometimes fugally developed,
in the middle. The clearest example
in these sonatas is the first movement of the
third Sonata, in A major, in which the corresponding
divisions at either end are long, and
strongly contrasted in the modern quality and
more simultaneous motion of the parts, with the
elaborate fugal structure of the middle division.
In the last movement of the Sonata in Bb the
corresponding sections are very short, but the
effect is structurally satisfying and clear. In
no case is the structural system of keys used
with anything approaching the clearness of a
pianoforte sonata. Material is contrasted with
material, sometimes simply as subjects or figures,
sometimes even in respect of style ; as a chorale
with recitative, chorale with fugal passages, or
harmonic passages with contrapuntal passages.
Sometimes these are kept distinct, and, sometimes,
as in the first movement of the Sonata in
Bb, they are combined together at the end. The
general laying out of the complete works, though
based on the same broadest radical principles, is
in actual order and manner quite distinct from
that of pianoforte sonabis. The longer movements
alternate with very short ones, which
commonly resemhle Romances, Lieder ohne
Worte, or such expressive lyrical types ; and
occasionally the whole sonata concludes with a
little movement of this
sort, as No. 3 in A and
2 M