Table Of ContentCLASSICAL FORM
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Classical Form
A Theory of Formal Functions
for the Instrumental Music
of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven
WILLIAM E. CAPLIN
New York Oxford
Oxford University Press
1998
Oxford University Press
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Copyright © 1998 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may he reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
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without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Caplin, William Earl, 1948-
Classical form : a theory of formal functions for the instrumental music of Haydn,
Mozart, and Beethoven / William E. Caplin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-510480-3
1. Musical form. 2. Instrumental music—18th century-----Analysis, appreciation.
3. Instrumental music—19th century—Analysis, appreciation. 4. Musical analysis.
5. Classicism in music. 6. Music—Theory—2Oth century.
7. Haydn, Joseph, 1732-1809—Criticism and interpretation.
8. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 1756-1791—Criticism and interpretation.
9. Beethoven, Ludwig van, 1770-1827—Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.
MT58.C37 1997 97-25561
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
To my parents,
ARTHUR AND NATALIE CAPLIN
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PREFACE
This project owes its origins to a specific curricular require- teaching stimulated many new ideas and helped keep me
ment of all music students at McGill University. Shortly honest. I particularly want to acknowledge the efforts
after my arrival here in 1978,I was asked to teach a semes- of Patrick McCreless, William Rothstein, and M. Evan
ter course on form that was restricted to music in the classi- Bonds, who read substantial portions of the book and of-
cal style. I soon discovered that the standard textbooks, fered numerous suggestions for its improvement. All re-
which surveyed a much broader stylistic field, did not ad- maining errors and misinterpretations are, of course, en-
dress many issues particularly associated with the music of tirely my responsibility.
Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I thus turned back to ma- The musical examples were prepared with the help of
terial that I had first encountered several years earlier in a Peter von Holtzendorff, Cathrine McKinley, Suzanne Davies,
seminar on musical form given by Carl Dahlhaus at the William Brock, Francois de Medicis, and James Wright; I
Berlin Technical University, in which the principal refer- thank Keith Hamel for allowing me to use early versions of
ence work was Erwin Ratz's Einfuhrung in die musikalische his music notation program Note Writer II. I also thank
Formenlehre. I began incorporating into my course at McGill Maribeth Payne and her colleagues Soo Mee Kwon and
some ideas from this treatise, as well as similar material Cynthia Garver at Oxford University Press for their inter-
from Fundamentals of Musical Composition by Arnold Schoen- est in my work and for their many suggestions on how to
berg, with whom Ratz had studied. make it a viable publication. Finally, my wife, Marsha, has
My own expansion of these concepts of form reached a sustained me throughout my endeavors to bring this work
sufficient stage of development to begin writing this book to completion; for her patience and encouragement I am
during a sabbatical leave in 1984-85. In subsequent years, especially grateful.
earlier drafts of this book were used as a reference text in a Research for this project was generously supported by
variety of classes at McGill, as well as at Yale University, the grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
University of Ottawa, and the Universite de Sherbrooke. Council of Canada and from the Faculty of Graduate Stud-
Although I have written this book as a comprehensive theo- ies and Research, McGill University.
retical treatise, the reader will quickly discern a distinct Portions of this book have appeared earlier in article
pedagogical tone, betraying its origins in the interactive ex- form. I want to thank the publishers for permission to in-
perience of classroom instruction. corporate material from the following articles:
AMONG THE MANY PEOPLE who helped me realize this
"The 'Expanded Cadential Progression': A Category for
project, I must first mention the considerable stimulus and the Analysis of Classical Form," Journal of Musicological
encouragement offered by Janet Schmalfeldt, with whom I Research 7 (1987): 215-57.
have had a continuing dialogue on almost every topic
"Hybrid Themes: Toward a Refinement in the Classifi-
treated in this book. Her work with me at times ap-
cation of Classical Theme Types," Beethoven Forum 3
proached a collaborative effort, and her teaching of this
material helped me shape the diverse collection of ideas (1994):151-65.
and concerns into a systematic theoretical—analytical ap- "Funktionale Komponenten im achttaktigen Satz,"
proach. At various stages of the project I also received Musiktheorie 1 (1986): 239-60.
significant help and support from Brian Alegant, Bo Al-
"Structural Expansion in Beethoven's Symphonic
phonce, Elliot Asarnow, Wallace Berry, Richard Braley, Forms," in Beethoven's Compositional Process, ed. William
William Drabkin, Michelle Fillion, Ingeborg Pfingsten
Kinderman, 27-54. Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Gursching, Steven Huebner, Patricia Kerridge, Cynthia
Press, 1991.
Leive, Donald McLean, Leonard B. Meyer, Christopher
Reynolds, Lewis Rowell, Norma Sherman, Peter Schu-
bert, and Elaine Sisman. In addition, I owe much gratitude Montreal W. E. C.
to the many students at McGill whose response to my March 1997
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NOTE ON THE MUSICAL EXAMPLES
I have used as many musical examples as feasible to illustrate the various voices into different octaves and inverting the
the theoretical issues presented in this book. In order to draw inner parts. In addition, I sometimes rewrote orchestral ac-
maximum efficiency from the examples, I have often used companimental figurations in order to make them easier to
single examples to illustrate multiple theoretical issues. As a play at the piano. I tried to keep the melody and bass line as
result, the book contains numerous cross references to exam- close to the original as possible. The added harmonic ana-
ples within and between chapters. Thus I ask the reader to lyses are based on the complete texture of the original
refer to earlier appearing examples and even, though much sources and thus may sometimes not correspond exactly to
less often, to look ahead to examples that appear later than the transcriptions (e.g., a II label may be used where the
their mention in the text. In a number of cases, I have broken transcription merely shows a II6 chord).
up a relatively long musical passage into individual examples, Works by Beethoven are labeled by opus numbers. Works
so that the music may be located near its discussion. Starting by Mozart are identified by their original Kochel numbers as
with part II, the example discussions, which illustrate the im- well as by a revised number, where necessary, from the sixth
mediately preceding points of theory, are printed in reduced edition of the Kochel catalogue (e.g., K. 250/248b). Haydn's
type so that they may be distinguished from the flow of the symphonies are numbered according to Hoboken group I;
general theoretical presentation. his string quartets are labeled by their traditional opus num-
To save space, I have reset all the examples as "reduction ber; and his other works are given complete Hoboken num-
transcriptions," in which the texture is compressed into a bers. The reference to "piano" in any work citation or cap-
single staff. This procedure often resulted in my shifting tion is generic for the appropriate keyboard instrument.
