The Sonate auf Concertenart: A Postmodern Invention? David ...

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The Organ Music, 33-4.
Autograph score in Dl Mus. ms. 2398-O-5.
Sonate auf Concertenart, p. 27
Williams adds that "formal ambiguities are typical of forms transferred from one medium
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(concerto) to another (organ sonata). But it remains entirely possible that the version of
ritornello form found in BWV 1032/1 and other obbligato-keyboard works of Bach originated in
nothing other than the instrumental duetto with continuo accompaniment.
In some such works, the melody parts retain their separate identities; this would appear to
be the case in those unnamed works that Scheibe had in mind in introducing the concept Sonate
auf Concertenart. In others, such as Bach's cembalo-obbligato sonatas, material is cycled between
the upper voices, much as in Scheibe's "ordinary" sonatas. In either case, the similarity to the type
of ritornello form found in the solo concerto is superficial, and Scheibe's term Sonate auf
Concertenart is potentially misleading when applied on that basis.
This is not to deny the obvious points in common between concerto and sonata
movements that share some sort of antithesis between the first two main formal sections. By 1720
or so such an antithesis was certainly an expected feature in the quick movements of a concerto,
even in movements whose overall form was more like that of a sonata. Binary form is not today
associated with the concerto, and indeed it is rare in works composed after 1725 or so. But it is
by no means unusual before then, as in the final movements of the concerto TWV 43:A4,
Marcello's E-minor concerto op. 1, no. 2 (Venice, 1708), or the two quick movements of a
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Heinichen Concerto a 6 in B�. In each case, the two halves of the binary form open and close
with tutti passages, separated by modulating solo passages. This creates a phraseology resembling
that of ritornello form and, together with the presence of at least a few phrases of vigorous
passagework (whether or not for solo parts), might have made such movements seem appropriate
to a concerto. Vivaldi nevertheless replaced such movements with through-composed forms in
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two of the concertos that Bach transcribed for keyboard. This implies that binary-form
movements were coming to be viewed in Venice as inappropriate to concertos at a time when
they remained common elements of the genre in other places. Simultaneously, what we call
ritornello forms must have been emerging as normal or customary elements of concerto
movements, but only then, and through a gradual process, becoming genre markers.
Scoring and instrumentation
Orchestral scoring has been taken as another marker of the concerto. But the modern notion of
the concerto as an orchestral genre, that is, one in which the ripieno parts are doubled, is
inconsistently documented before 1750 or so. Although multiple doublets for ripieno parts exist
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Concertos RV 316a and RV 381, transcribed by Bach (presumably from manuscript
versions) as BWV 975 and 980. Later versions without binary-form movements were published in
Vivaldi's op. 4 (Amsterdam, ca. 1714). Mary Oleskiewicz ("Quantz and the Flute at Dresden,"
243-57), points out that the lively sort of exchange particularly characteristic of this sort of
concerto movement is also found in numerous binary-form sonata movements, which might
therefore have been regarded as concertenartig.