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The Interaction of Sonata Form and Schemata Derived from Galant Practice in the First Movements of Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas

Magarotto, Matteo
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0596-3258
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1470754875

Abstract Details

2016, PhD, University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music: Music (Musicology).
The 1980s saw a paradigm shift in the understanding of late-eighteenth-century music, as scholars moved from a view of compositions as independent monads to a study of their relationships with contemporaneous conventions. Influential twenty-first-century embodiments of this contextual outlook are James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy’s Elements of Sonata Theory (2006) and Robert Gjerdingen’s Music in the Galant Style (2007), which base analysis of eighteenth-century music, respectively, on a dialogic genre theory of the sonata and on a psychological theory of stylistic schemata used by composers and recognized by listeners. This dissertation offers the first large-scale application of these two analytical methods in an integrated fashion, closely examining the first movements of W. A. Mozart’s keyboard sonatas (composed between 1775 and 1789), to produce an enriched account of his compositional strategies in this repertory. My study is historically informed not only because it relies on analytical systems grounded in an extensive eighteenth-century corpus, but also because it relates analytic concepts to eighteenth-century music theory, to W. A. Mozart’s training, and to Leopold Mozart’s notion of il filo (the thread) as a principle for compositional mastery. Adopting the dialogic perspective on form, I use a comparative approach that proceeds section-by-section rather than movement-by-movement, describing Mozart’s usage of schemata in each section and deriving hermeneutic interpretations from such descriptions. My discovery of recurrent patterns of interaction between schemata and form in the seventeen movements under consideration leads to the hypothesis of a “sonata script” as Mozart’s cognitive structure organizing the composition of his keyboard sonatas. I argue that the sonata script contained relatively specialized subgroups of schemata for each slot of the form alongside guidelines regarding other zone-specific compositional procedures, and that Mozart selected among such schemata and procedures to fashion individual movements. I reconstruct the script for the expositional and developmental sections, and discuss recapitulations and tonal resolutions in terms of their alignment with or alterations of the expositional layout. This study reveals a significant interdependence between formal zones and schemata disposition in Mozart’s keyboard sonatas, confirming the inextricable link between form and “content,” and demonstrating the value of the integrated analytical method. I propose overarching hermeneutic readings, including: a distinction between two modalities in Mozart’s musical style, namely stable-orderly (based on schemata) and ad hoc (idiosyncratic); a view of schemata as devices for specific functions or actions, such as the “stalling” function of particular schemata in secondary-theme zones and closing zones; and an appraisal of the role of symmetry in Mozart’s sonatas. Finally, this dissertation contributes to the scholarship on eighteenth-century music by offering an efficient analytical procedure that coordinates small- and large-scale levels of sonata design. This study promotes a deepened understanding of Mozart’s compositional craft in a coherent group of compositions, opening a path for similar explorations in other repertories.
Mary Sue Morrow, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Steven Cahn, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
bruce mcclung, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
436 p.
Music
Mozart; Sonata; Analysis; Gjerdingen; Heopokoski; Schema

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Magarotto, M. (2016). The Interaction of Sonata Form and Schemata Derived from Galant Practice in the First Movements of Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1470754875

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Magarotto, Matteo. The Interaction of Sonata Form and Schemata Derived from Galant Practice in the First Movements of Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas. 2016. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1470754875.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Magarotto, Matteo. "The Interaction of Sonata Form and Schemata Derived from Galant Practice in the First Movements of Mozart's Keyboard Sonatas." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1470754875

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1470754875
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.