Music: An Appreciation, Brief 7th Edition (Kamien)

Chapter 3: Sonata Form

Story in Sonata Form

Listen to the first movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 40, featured as a listening example in Chapter 3. As you listen, imagine a story that matches the musical action and write it in sonata form in three or four paragraphs. You may need to thoughtfully listen to this movement more than once for this project.

The exposition paragraph will simply describe the characters (themes) in your story. Your characters will encounter events and react in a dramatic development paragraph. The story will then resolve in the recapitulation paragraph, as your characters find themselves back in a familiar situation. Perhaps you will decide to include an epilogue (coda) paragraph, in which a bit more about your story's ending is described. If you do decide to include a coda, how long will it be? Early classical composers added brief codas, if any, but later Beethoven would compose more elaborate codas, which could be as lengthy as an entire development section.