For what instruments were sonatas written, and what implications does instrumental scoring have for the structure, sound and texture of sonatas? These questions have not been foregrounded so far – but they are nevertheless crucial. We have seen, in particular, that scoring or instrumentation can play a decisive role in determining whether a composition can be called a ‘sonata’ in the first place, as opposed to, say, a canzona, a piano trio or even a sinfonia. These considerations can and do override formal aspects: an orchestral suite written c. 1700 can be more or less identical to a sonata in terms of the number and the internal structure of its movements. Only in exceptional cases – as, for example, in the sonata da chiesa – is a specific formal pattern associated with a particular type of sonata.

In contrast to the term ‘string quartet’, however, ‘sonata’ as such tells us nothing about the number and nature of the instruments involved. This necessitates the addition of further terms to qualify and specify the general designation – terms which may refer either to the number of instruments (‘sonata a 2’, ‘trio sonata’) or their types (‘piano sonata’, ‘violin sonata’).

The ‘free’ sonata in the seventeenth century

The history of the sonata in the seventeenth century is primarily a history of the sonata in Italy. The composition of music specifically for instruments – canzonas, toccatas, ricercars and capriccios – had flourished here since the middle of the sixteenth century, and from c. 1600 this provided a fertile ground for sonata composition, which spread from Venice and the cities and courts of northern Italy across the entire peninsula within a few decades. Table 2.1 provides a chronological and topographical overview, showing the primary composers and centres.

The scene north of the Alps, such as it was, was also dominated by expatriate Italians: the Venetian Giovanni Valentini (1582/3–1649) and the Veronese Antonio Bertali (1605–69), for example, were employed at the Imperial court in Vienna, the Mantuan violinist Carlo Farina (c. 1600–40) at the court of the Saxon kings in Dresden. Not until c. 1640 do we encounter a native composer of note in Germany: Johann Erasmus Kindermann (1618–55), who published four sonata collections in Nuremberg between 1640 and 1643. He was followed by Johann Rosenmüller (1619–84) and Johann Heinrich Schmelzer (c. 1620–80), slightly later by Johann Kuhnau (1660–1722), Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707) and, in Austria, Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber (1644–1704). There was no sustained tradition of composing sonatas in England before Henry Purcell (1659–95), or in France before François Couperin (1668–1733).

According to William Newman, one of the defining characteristics of the sonata is its nature as ‘absolute’ music – music, therefore, that is neither firmly associated with a specific function (such as music for the liturgy, for the stage or for dancing) nor tied by means of verbal additions (titles, programmes, etc.) to specific ‘meanings’. In the words of the nineteenth-century music critic Eduard Hanslick, sonatas are ‘forms of sound in motion’ (tönend bewegte Formen) and nothing else. However, while this can be a useful means of distinguishing sonatas (or, at least, most sonatas) from other genres of instrumental music – such as the dance suite in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries and the lyrical piano piece or the fantasia in the nineteenth – the claim that the sonata was never more than a ‘sound piece’ written for its own sake is exaggerated and potentially misleading. If it was not firmly tied to specific functions or contexts, it could at least be strongly associated with them; and ‘programme sonatas’, while certainly not the rule, are still too numerous to be altogether ignored.

Locations and occasions

If it is true that sonatas were rarely composed for certain occasions, it is undoubtedly also true that they were played at certain occasions. The first context which deserves mention here is the church.

What is a sonata? Literally translated, a ‘sonata’ is simply a ‘sounding piece’, or, more specifically, a piece written purely for instruments. On the face of it, little else seems to link an ensemble sonata by Giovanni Gabrieli and a piano sonata by Beethoven, or a Corelli trio sonata and John Cage's Sonatas and Interludes. This study sets out to define characteristics of compositions which were called ‘sonata’ that set them apart from other types of instrumental music and allow us to outline the development or history of a musical genre – a history marked by diversity more than uniformity, by change more than continuity.

The focus of the second chapter – the central part of the book – is on the ‘form’ of sonatas, their musical structures and textures. These include not only the familiar ‘sonata form’, although that will receive its due share of attention, but also those ‘forms’ chronologically preceding it – such as the canzona movement, the dance, the fugue, the figured bass texture in general – and those following it (serial, postmodern, historicist structures). The third chapter considers the sonata as a social and aesthetic phenomenon, considering the purpose of sonatas and who composed, played, bought and listened to them. Finally, the fourth chapter examines the scoring of sonatas, addressing such questions as: what, exactly, is a ‘trio sonata’ and how many musicians are required to play one? Why are there no keyboard sonatas before the eighteenth century?

Everyone who plays a musical instrument has come across sonatas, and certain composers and particular works spring most readily to mind. Pianists are likely to think of Beethoven (perhaps also Haydn, Mozart, Brahms, Liszt); organists, of J. S. Bach (and perhaps Mendelssohn); violinists – depending on whether they are more interested in earlier or later periods – of Corelli and Vivaldi or of (again) Mozart and Beethoven, possibly also of Brahms and César Franck. The list continues with composers who may be less familiar to the general public than to instrumentalists: again J. S. Bach for viol players, Quantz and Poulenc for flautists, perhaps Brahms for clarinettists and Paul Hindemith for violists.

Those who have studied music theory in school or elsewhere will also be reminded of ‘sonata form’ – that elusive combination of exposition, development and recapitulation that has allegedly informed instrumental music since the late eighteenth century but that seems to consist more of exceptions than of rules. And of course: even if we could confidently define ‘sonata form’, sonatas were composed in abundance even before its advent. Giovanni Gabrieli composed ensemble sonatas as early as the late sixteenth century; Arcangelo Corelli's and Henry Purcell's trio sonatas are considered to be paradigmatic of Baroque instrumental style and texture. However, the only feature they share with the classical sonata is the fact that they consist (most frequently) of four movements; these movements follow their own traditions of texture, form and style, and the description of such works as ‘dance suites’ or ‘church sonatas’ is almost as fraught with ambiguities as the dreaded ‘sonata form’ itself.

In the case of a composer like Mendelssohn, it is not easy to claim that a certain part of his oeuvre is more important than another: it was his avowed goal to be active and successful in as many different musical genres as possible, and – with the single exception of opera – he achieved just this. Nevertheless, it can be said that the mature chamber works of Mendelssohn rank not only among the finest works of the composer, but among those achievements of his that were of lasting importance for the entire century. The techniques of motivic combination, derivation, juxtaposition, and interplay that characterize his mature chamber style, which arose from Mendelssohn's fascination with the music of both Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig Beethoven, exercised a considerable influence on nineteenth-century instrumental music in general; it is hardly an exaggeration to claim that the technique of “developing variation” has its roots precisely here. Furthermore, their sheer beauty and highly idiomatic writing for all instruments have secured a place in the performance repertoire and the recording market for at least some of these works – particularly the two piano trios and some of the string quartets.