Elements of Sonata Theory is a comprehensive, richly detailed rethinking of the basic principles of sonata form in the decades around 1800. This foundational study draws upon the joint strengths of current music history and music theory to outline a new, up-to-date paradigm for understanding the compositional choices found in the instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries: sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, overtures, and concertos. In so doing, it also lays out the indispensable groundwork for anyone wishing to confront the later adaptations and...

This collection of essays, presented by an internationally known team of scholars, explores the world of Vienna and the development of opera buffa in the second half of the eighteenth century. Among the topics explored are the relationship of Viennese opera buffa to French theater; Mozart and eighteenth century comedy; gender, nature and bourgeois society on Mozart's buffa stage; as well as close examinations of key works such as Don Giovanni and Figaro.

In Musical Form, Forms & Formenlehre: Three Methodological Reflections, three eminent music theorists consider the fundamentals of musical form. They discuss how to analyze form in music and question the relevance of analytical theories and methods in general. They illustrate their basic concepts and concerns by offering some concrete analyses of works by Mozart (Idomeneo Overture, Jupiter Symphony) and Beethoven (First Symphony, Pastoral Symphony, Egmont Overture, and Die Ruinen von Athen Overture). The volume is divided into three parts, focusing on Caplin's "theory of formal functions,"...

Elements of Sonata Theory is a comprehensive, richly detailed rethinking of the basic principles of sonata form in the decades around 1800. This foundational study draws upon the joint strengths of current music history and music theory to outline a new, up-to-date paradigm for understanding the compositional choices found in the instrumental works of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and their contemporaries: sonatas, chamber music, symphonies, overtures, and concertos. In so doing, it also lays out the indispensable groundwork for anyone wishing to confront the later adaptations and...