978-0393602517 Chapter 27

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CHAPTER 27

Expanding the Conversation: Mozart, Chamber Music, and Larger Forms

OVERVIEW

This chapter introduces more of the standard genres of Classical chamber music: the

divertimento and serenade. It explores these genres with reference to sonata-allegro form and

minuet and trio form as modeled in Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. To recognize the divertimento and as standard genres of Classical chamber music

2. To understand the formal structure of first-movement sonata-allegro

3. To recognize the models of sonata-allegro form and minuet and trio form in Mozart’s Eine

kleine Nachtmusik

LECTURE SUGGESTIONS

1. Guide students through a first listening to the sonata-allegro form of the first movement

from Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Make an outline of the form available either on the

board or on a worksheet (or use the Listening Guide) for students to refer to while they

listen. Stop after each major structural area (second theme, transition, repeat of the

exposition, etc.) and ask the class where you have paused in the model. If students are

unable to detect a new structural area when paused at places with important key changes

(second-theme statements) and/or thematic shifts (first, second, and closing themes), try

comparing the area in question with a previous important structural area. For example, if

students are unable to hear the second theme in the exposition, try comparing it with the

theme and key of the first theme.

2. While listening to the minuet and trio from Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, instruct the

class to diagram the phrase structure of the movement using uppercase As and Bs to denote

large sections and lowercase as and bs for shorter eight- or four-bar phrases. After the class

arrives at a solution, ask students to compare minuet and trio form with sonata-allegro form.

Students should recognize the correspondence between the overall ternary design of minuet

and trio and the exposition-development-recap formula of sonata–allegro, as well as the

presence of two themes within the larger thematic sections that begin and end both forms

(the As of minuet and trio, and the exposition and recap of sonata-allegro).

ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS

1. Recall from Chapter 25 that the Classical era embraced absolute music, music that relies on

abstract formal designs without any connection to a specific narrative program (such as a

story or poem). Consider Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, an example of absolute music.

Does the structure of the movements provide meaning for this piece? If so, what are these

meanings and how does the music provide them?

2. Why do you think composers of the Enlightenment used the sonata-allegro form so

pervasively throughout the eighteenth century? What connections can you find between this

enlightened age and the designs standardized in the sonata-allegro format?

TEACHING CHALLENGES

Exploring modulations and key changes may prove difficult for some students when they first

encounter the structural components of sonata-allegro form in this chapter. Take time to review

these concepts by first plying simple melodies at different pitch levels, and then apply them to

the first-movement themes of Eine kleine Nachtmusik at the tonic and dominant levels.

SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY

Mozart: Ein musikalischer Spaß (A Musical Joke), K. 522

Beethoven: Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20

SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hepokoski, James, and Warren Darcy. Elements of Sonata Theory: Norms, Types, and

Deformations in the Late-Eighteenth–Century Sonata. New York: Oxford University Press,

2006. Although a good portion of this book is designed for advanced students and

theorists, Chapters one and two (“Contexts” and “Sonata Form as a Whole: Foundational

Considerations”) provide an excellent introduction to the genesis of the sonata form

concept and the way it has been taught and learned since the eighteenth century.

Bonds, Mark Evan. Wordless Rhetoric: Musical Form and the Metaphor of the Oration.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Bonds discusses the role that rhetoric has

played in theoretical discussions of form in instrumental music since the eighteenth century.

For a specific eighteenth-century context, see “Rhetoric and the Concept of Form in the

Eighteenth Century.”

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Expanding the Conversation: Mozart, Chamber Music, and Larger Forms (Chapter 27)

I. Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik

A. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791)

1. Mozart’s life:

a. Austrian composer, pianist

b. son of Leopold Mozart, esteemed court composer-violinist

c. most extraordinarily gifted child in the history of music

d. rebelled against patronage system; age twenty–five, freelance musician in Vienna

2. Mozart’s music:

a. elegant, songful melodies

b. contrasts of mood, drama

c. peak of career, three comic operas: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così

fan tutte

d. prolific composer of all genres: chamber music, keyboard works, symphony,

concertos, operas

B. Mozart’s chamber music and Eine kleine Nachtmusik

1. divertimento and serenade

a. lighter genres

b. performed at social functions

2. Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music)

a. serenade: string quartet and double bass

b. public entertainment; outdoor performance

c. four movements

d. compact, intimate, beautifully proportioned

C. Structural conventions: forms provide framework

1. use of sonata-allegro form

a. more complex, intricate

b. supple framework: infinite variety

c. more profound musical conversation

d. favorite of instrumental composers

D. The first movement: sonata-allegro form

1. first movement usually in a fast tempo

2. longest in multimovement cycle

3. sonata-allegro (sonata) form: drama between two contrasting key areas

a. exposition: first section

i. statement of themes: two opposing keys and themes

ii. theme 1: home key (tonic)

iii. bridge: transitional passage

iv. theme 2: contrasting key

v. closing section; often a closing theme

vi. exposition repeats

b. development: second section

i. conflict and action: building of tension

ii. themes varied, expanded, contracted

iii. foreign keys, frequent modulations

iv. activity and restlessness

v. bridge leads back to tonic

c. recapitulation: third section

i. psychological climax: return to first theme

ii. restatement of themes in tonic

iii. coda: extension of closing idea

E. The third movement: minuet and trio form

1. Baroque era origins: court dance

a. stately, triple meter

2. (A-B-A), pair of dances

a. B section: originally three instruments (trio)

b. da capo (“from the beginning”): first dance repeated

3. internal structure

a. binary (a-b), or rounded binary (a-ba)

b. symmetrical: four and eight measure phrases

F. Listening Guide 16: Mozart, Eine kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music), K. 525, First

and Third Movements (1787)

1. Movement 1: Allegro; sonata-allegro form

a. theme 1: disjunct, ascending “rocket” theme

b. theme 2: graceful, descending

c. short development

d. vigorous coda

2. Movement 3: Allegretto; minuet and trio form

a. strong, triple meter

b. regular four-bar phrases, rounded binary

c. minuet: bright, decisive

d. trio: lyrical contrast