Sonata, in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata, a piece sung. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century, it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas still maintain the same structure.
The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists, a violist, and a cellist.
Sonata form is a musical structure generally consisting of three main sections: an exposition, a development, and a recapitulation. It has been used widely since the middle of the 18th century.
A scherzo, in western classical music, is a short composition – sometimes a movement from a larger work such as a symphony or a sonata. The precise definition has varied over the years, but scherzo often refers to a movement that replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or string quartet. The term can also refer to a fast-moving humorous composition that may or may not be part of a larger work.
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term Tondichtung appears to have been first used by the composer Carl Loewe in 1828. The Hungarian composer Franz Liszt first applied the term Symphonische Dichtung to his 13 works in this vein.
The Trout Quintet (Forellenquintett) is the popular name for the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667, by Franz Schubert. The piano quintet was composed in 1819, when he was 22 years old; it was not published, however, until 1829, a year after his death.
The Piano Quintet in E-flat major, Op. 44, by Robert Schumann was composed in 1842 and received its first public performance the following year. Noted for its "extroverted, exuberant" character, Schumann's piano quintet is considered one of his finest compositions and a major work of nineteenth-century chamber music. Composed for piano and string quartet, the work revolutionized the instrumentation and musical character of the piano quintet and established it as a quintessentially Romantic genre.
The Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, by Johannes Brahms was completed during the summer of 1864 and published in 1865. It was dedicated to Her Royal Highness Princess Anna of Hesse. As with most piano quintets composed after Robert Schumann's Piano Quintet (1842), it is written for piano and string quartet.
Franz Adolf Berwald was a Swedish Romantic composer and violinist. He made his living as an orthopedist and later as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory, and became more appreciated as a composer after his death than he had been in his lifetime.
Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 29 in B♭ major, Op. 106 is a piano sonata that is widely viewed as one of the most important works of the composer's third period and among the greatest piano sonatas of all time. Completed in 1818, it is often considered to be Beethoven's most technically challenging piano composition and one of the most demanding solo works in the classical piano repertoire. The first documented public performance was in 1836 by Franz Liszt in the Salle Erard in Paris.
Sonata rondo form is a musical form often used during the Classical and Romantic music eras. As the name implies, it is a blend of sonata and rondo forms.
Cyclic form is a technique of musical construction, involving multiple sections or movements, in which a theme, melody, or thematic material occurs in more than one movement as a unifying device. Sometimes a theme may occur at the beginning and end ; other times a theme occurs in a different guise in every part.
Sonata form is one of the most influential ideas in the history of Western classical music. Since the establishment of the practice by composers like C.P.E. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert and the codification of this practice into teaching and theory, the practice of writing works in sonata form has changed considerably.
Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most influential figures in the history of classical music. Since his lifetime, when he was "universally accepted as the greatest living composer", Beethoven's music has remained among the most performed, discussed and reviewed in the Western world. Scholarly journals are devoted to analysis of his life and work. He has been the subject of numerous biographies and monographs, and his music was the driving force behind the development of Schenkerian analysis. He is widely considered among the most important composers, and along with Bach and Mozart, his music is the most frequently recorded.
The Piano Sonata in B minor, S.178, is a piano sonata by Franz Liszt. It was completed in 1853 and published in 1854 with a dedication to Robert Schumann.
D-flat major is a major scale based on D♭, consisting of the pitches D♭, E♭, F, G♭, A♭, B♭ and C. Its key signature has five flats. It is enharmonically equivalent to C-sharp major.
Après une lecture du Dante: Fantasia quasi Sonata is a piano sonata in one movement, completed by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt in 1849. It was first published in 1856 as part of the second volume of his Années de pèlerinage. This work of program music was inspired by the reading of Victor Hugo's poem “Après un lecture du Dante” (1836).
The double variation is a musical form used in classical music. It is a type of theme and variations that employs two themes. In a double variation set, a first theme is followed by a second theme (B), followed by a variation on A, then a variation on B, and so on with alternating A and B variations. Often there is a coda at the end.
Grande sonate: Les quatre âges is a four movement sonata for piano by Charles-Valentin Alkan. The sonata's title refers to the subtitles given to each movement, portraying a man at the ages of 20, 30, 40, and 50. The work was published in 1847, dedicated to the composer's father, Alkan Morhange.
Franz Schubert's last three piano sonatas, D 958, 959 and 960, are his last major compositions for solo piano. They were written during the last months of his life, between the spring and autumn of 1828, but were not published until about ten years after his death, in 1838–39. Like the rest of Schubert's piano sonatas, they were mostly neglected in the 19th century. By the late 20th century, however, public and critical opinion had changed, and these sonatas are now considered among the most important of the composer's mature masterpieces. They are part of the core piano repertoire, appearing regularly on concert programs and recordings.
