Glossary

A concerto sets one soloist against an orchestra. The Classical concerto has three movements: a fast first movement, a slow middle, and a quick finale that is usually a rondo.

The first movement is a sonata form with a twist. The orchestra plays the exposition alone first, staying in the home key; then the soloist enters and the exposition is played again, this time moving to the second key as a normal exposition would. This catalog labels those two passes Exposition 1 and Exposition 2. Development and recapitulation follow as usual. Near the end the orchestra stops on a chord and the soloist plays alone: the cadenza, originally improvised, later written out by the composer. The coda comes after it.

Baroque concertos like Bach's Brandenburgs work differently: a returning orchestral passage (the ritornello) alternates with solo episodes, closer to a rondo than to sonata form. Romantic concertos loosen the double exposition and sometimes let the soloist begin at once.

In a Classical first movement, wait for the soloist's first entry. Everything before it is the orchestral exposition; the soloist then starts the material again.

The cadenza is easy to spot: the orchestra falls silent, the soloist plays freely, and a long trill signals the orchestra's return.

In the finale, count the returns of the refrain as in any rondo. The soloist and orchestra often trade it back and forth.

In Bach, listen for the ritornello: the full-group passage that opens the movement and keeps coming back between solo stretches.

A fugue is built from one short melody, the subject, which enters in one voice alone and is then taken up by each of the other voices in turn while the earlier voices continue with new counterpoint. That opening round of entries is the fugue's exposition. What follows alternates episodes, where the subject is absent or only hinted at, with further entries of the subject in new keys.

Composers can transform the subject: play it upside down (inversion), slow it down (augmentation), speed it up (diminution), or overlap entries so closely that one begins before the previous one ends (stretto). Beethoven used all of these in the finale of the Hammerklavier sonata Op. 106. A passage of fugal writing inside a movement that is not a fugue overall is called a fugato; the first movement of Op. 111 has one in its development.

In this catalog fugues appear inside larger movements: the finales of Op. 106 and Op. 110, the double fugue in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth, and the fugato passages in several symphonic finales.

Count the entries at the start. Each new voice that begins the subject is one entry; when the count matches the number of voices, the exposition is over.

Every later return of the subject is a structural point. Try to catch whether it is in a new key, upside down, or slower.

Episodes feel lighter and more sequential: the same short figure moved up or down step by step.

Near the end, entries pile up close together (stretto) and the texture thickens. That is the fugue's climax.

The minuet was a court dance in triple time. In a symphony or sonata the minuet movement has three parts: the minuet, a contrasting second dance called the trio, and the minuet again. The trio got its name from the Baroque habit of scoring it for three instruments; by Haydn's time the name stayed but the scoring was free. The trio is usually lighter, quieter, or in a different key.

Beethoven kept the layout but replaced the minuet with the scherzo, a much faster movement, often in one beat to the bar, sometimes with an aggressive or joking character. Scherzo means joke in Italian.

Each half of the minuet and each half of the trio carries a repeat sign in the score. When the minuet returns after the trio (the da capo), the repeats are normally left out. Performers differ in how many repeats they take, which is why the same movement can be much longer in one recording than in another.

Count the three big blocks: minuet, trio, minuet again. The last block is the first block heard a second time.

The trio is the point of contrast. Listen for fewer instruments, a softer dynamic, a change of key, or a smoother melody.

Inside the minuet, listen for the repeat of each half. If the first phrase comes back immediately, the performer is taking the repeats.

In a scherzo the pulse is fast and often felt in whole bars rather than beats. Beethoven's scherzos frequently have a trio that sounds slower even when the tempo does not change.

A piano sonata is a multi-movement work for piano alone, normally in three or four movements arranged like a small symphony: a sonata-form first movement, a slow movement, often a minuet or scherzo, and a finale in rondo or sonata form. Haydn and Mozart wrote mostly three-movement sonatas; Beethoven's early ones have four.

Beethoven's thirty-two sonatas are the backbone of this catalog because they cover his whole career and show him testing every part of the plan. Op. 26 opens with variations instead of a sonata form. Op. 27 No. 2, the Moonlight, puts the slow movement first and calls itself sonata quasi una fantasia. Op. 53, the Waldstein, joins its short slow introduction straight into the finale. The last sonatas shrink to two movements (Op. 90, Op. 111) or end with variations (Op. 109, Op. 111) or a fugue (Op. 106, Op. 110).

Repeats matter in sonatas more than anywhere else. The score asks for the exposition to be repeated and for each half of a minuet to be repeated; pianists choose which to observe. The timings in this catalog follow the recording, so a movement with the repeat taken is longer than the same movement without it.

In the first movement, find the exposition repeat if the pianist takes it; the labels show the section names twice.

Slow movements in Beethoven are often ternary or variation form; listen for the return of the opening tune, decorated.

In the minuet or scherzo, listen for the trio and then the return of the first section.

Late Beethoven: expect fugues, variations, and trills used as texture rather than ornament. The forms are the same as before; the surface is not.

A prelude is short and does not argue. It states an idea, works its surface for a minute or two, and stops. That is the opposite of sonata form, where material is taken apart and put back together, and it is why a prelude can be over before a sonata movement has finished its first subject.

The name comes from music that introduced something else: a prelude before a fugue, or before a suite. By Chopin's time it had become a piece in its own right, and a set of preludes is a tour of the keys rather than an introduction to anything.

Internally most preludes are binary (two halves) or ternary (an idea, a contrast, a return). Some are a single unbroken sweep with no seam at all, which is why an analysis may label only a couple of points, or none.

Find the figure. Most preludes are built on one accompaniment pattern or one rhythmic cell that runs almost throughout; identify it in the first bars and you have the piece's spine.

Listen for one point of contrast. If there is a middle section it usually changes key or mode, and often thins or thickens the texture rather than introducing a new tune.

Notice how it ends. Preludes often stop rather than conclude: a thinning out, a single line, one chord.

In a complete set, the joins matter. A loud short piece next to a slow long one is a deliberate pairing.

A rondo is built on one tune that keeps coming back. That tune is the refrain, labelled A. Between its returns come contrasting episodes, labelled B, C and so on. A short rondo runs A B A; a fuller one runs A B A C A, often with a final B and a coda.

The refrain returns in the home key every time, which is what makes it feel like a homecoming. The episodes go elsewhere: a new key, a new tune, sometimes a minor-key darkening in the middle.

Rondos are usually finales. Their character is light and quick, and the return of the refrain is meant to be recognised immediately.

Learn the opening tune in the first thirty seconds. Every time it comes back, unchanged and in the home key, you are at an A.

Between returns, listen for what is different: a new key, a new melody, a change of texture. That is an episode.

The central episode (C) is usually the longest and the most distant in key. Some composers turn it into a short development.

When a return of the refrain is decorated or shortened the label reads A1, A2. It is still the refrain.

Sonata form is the design used for most first movements, many finales and some slow movements from Haydn onwards. It is not a fixed template but a way of organising a movement around a departure from the home key and a return to it.

The movement has three main parts. The exposition presents the material: a first subject in the home key, a transition that moves away, a second subject in a new key (the dominant in a major-key work, the relative major in a minor-key work), and a codetta that closes the exposition. In Classical works the whole exposition is then repeated. The development takes fragments of that material and pushes them through unstable keys. The recapitulation brings the first subject back in the home key and then, crucially, keeps the second subject in the home key too, so the tension set up by the exposition is resolved. A coda may follow.

Some movements add a slow introduction before the exposition. Some slow movements use sonata form without a development, which the labels in this catalog call truncated sonata form.

The exposition repeat is the easiest landmark. When you hear the very opening again after a minute or two, you have just heard the whole exposition once.

The transition is where the music leaves home. It often gets louder, busier, and settles on a long dominant chord before the second subject arrives.

The development sounds restless: short fragments, quick key changes, no long tunes. When it calms down onto one sustained chord, the recapitulation is about to start.

In the recapitulation, listen to the second subject. It is the same tune as before but now it stays in the home key. That is the point of the whole form.

The coda starts after the recapitulation has finished the material of the exposition. In Beethoven it can be as long as a second development.

A sonata-rondo keeps the returning refrain of a rondo but organises the episodes the way a sonata form organises its subjects. The usual plan is A B A C A B A: the first B is in a contrasting key like a second subject, the central C behaves like a development, and the second B returns in the home key like a recapitulated second subject.

Mozart and Beethoven used it for finales because it combines the immediacy of a refrain with the tension and resolution of sonata form. The result feels playful on the surface and tightly argued underneath.

Treat the opening tune as the refrain and count its returns, as in a rondo.

Notice that the first contrasting episode is in a different key, and that the same episode comes back later in the home key. That return is the sonata side of the form.

The middle section usually breaks the refrain into fragments and wanders through keys. In the labels it may be called C, Development, or Episode.

Some analysts label these movements with letters, others with Exposition and Recapitulation. Both describe the same shape.

A symphonic poem is a single orchestral movement that follows a story, a character or a scene instead of a standard musical plan. There is no exposition to return to and no set number of sections. The shape comes from the subject.

That does not mean the music is shapeless. Composers kept the tools of sonata form and variation and used them where the subject allowed: a battle can be a development section, a portrait can be a theme and its variations. So a listener still hears themes stated, taken apart and brought back, just not in a fixed order.

The form grew out of the concert overture in the 1840s and reached its largest scale around 1900, when a single movement could run for forty five minutes and use an orchestra of a hundred players.

Learn the main theme in the first minute. In most symphonic poems one idea stands for the subject and everything else is measured against it.

Listen for the return. When the opening theme comes back changed, slower, quieter, in a different key, that is usually the point of the piece.

Follow the orchestration rather than the key. A new character often arrives as a new instrument, not a new tonality.

Section titles are a guide, not a wall. Sections run into one another without a break, so the joins are where the music changes texture, not where it stops.

A symphony is a large work for orchestra, usually in four movements that follow a standard order. The first movement is fast and in sonata form, sometimes preceded by a slow introduction. The second is slow. The third is a dance: a minuet and trio in Haydn and Mozart, a scherzo from Beethoven onwards. The finale is fast, in rondo, sonata or sonata-rondo form.

Haydn fixed this plan over more than a hundred symphonies. Beethoven kept it but enlarged every part: longer developments, codas the size of a second development, a scherzo instead of a minuet, and in the Ninth a chorus and soloists in the finale. Brahms and Bruckner kept the four-movement plan while stretching the length; Mahler added movements, songs and huge orchestras, so that his symphonies can run over ninety minutes.

Slow movements are the exception to the fast-movement rule: they may be in sonata form, ternary form, variations or rondo, and this catalog labels each one according to what its analyst found.

Expect the weight of argument in the first movement and the finale. The two middle movements are where a composer relaxes or plays.

The dance movement is the easiest to follow: minuet or scherzo, then trio, then the first part again.

In Beethoven and later, listen to how the finale answers the first movement. A minor-key first movement often gets a major-key finale, and that switch is the point of the whole work.

In Mahler, movements may run into each other without a pause (attacca) and songs may replace instrumental movements. The labels in this catalog mark those joins.

Ternary form is the simplest three-part design: a first section, a contrasting middle, and a return of the first section. The labels are A, B, A. When the return is changed, usually by adding decoration or shortening it, it is labelled A1.

Slow movements use it constantly. So do dance movements, where the minuet-and-trio layout is itself a large ternary form. Songs and character pieces use it too. The contrast in the middle is often a change of key, mode (major to minor or the reverse) or texture.

The first section usually ends with a clear cadence, a full stop in the music. What follows is the middle.

The middle section changes something you can name: the key, the mood, the accompaniment pattern, the instruments carrying the tune.

The return is the opening again. Listen for whether it is exact or decorated; a decorated return means the composer wanted you to hear the tune as remembered rather than repeated.

A short coda may round the movement off after the return.

A theme is stated plainly, then repeated several times with something changed each time. What stays fixed is usually the length of the theme and the sequence of its harmonies. What changes is everything else: the melody is decorated, the rhythm is doubled or tripled in speed, the tune moves to the left hand or the bass, the mode flips from major to minor, the texture becomes a march or a fugue.

Classical composers used the form for slow movements and finales; Beethoven made it a vehicle for some of his most searching music, including the finales of the sonatas Op. 109 and Op. 111. There the last variations dissolve the theme into trills and long lines rather than decorating it.

Learn the theme's length. Most variations are exactly as long, so once you know the theme you can count where each variation begins.

Listen for the one variation in the opposite mode. In a major-key set it is the minor variation, and it usually sits near the middle.

Late in the set expect a slow variation and then a fast one; the slow variation is often the emotional centre.

A coda after the last variation usually brings the plain theme back, or a fragment of it.