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Thread: The Formenlehre

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Feb-18-2015, 22:33 #1

Ramako
The Formenlehre
Senior Member
Formenlehre, which is basically the German for 'the study of
form', is quite an old discipline in music theory fully
established in the nineteenth century with, for example, A.B.
Marx's codification of sonata form. In the theory, there are
certain formal archetypes, allegedly derived from the works
of the masters (Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven), of which the
Join Date: Apr 2012 most famous and important is sonata form. For example,
Location: Durham, UK sonata form consists of an exposition (in which there are two
Posts: 1,708 themes separated by a transition), development (in which
Post Thanks / Like the themes are, surprisingly, developed) and recapitulation
(again, pretty much does what it says on the tin - the
themes in their original form return, this time in the home
key). Pieces of music in sonata form were expected to have a
first theme, and a second theme, and so on - indeed, some
writers went so far as to censored composers for any
deviation from these established forms, while other critics
did the opposite and railed against any who lacked the
originality to depart from these accepted forms.

The formenlehre fell out favour significantly in the twentieth

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century, however, as being 'pedantic' and 'inorganic'. One

problem for it was that many pieces of music which are
allegedly in the forms elaborated by the theory by the
classical masters, deviate in obvious ways from the types
described by the textbooks. Lately, however, there has been
a resurgence of these ideas, often called the New
Formenlehre, which seeks to revive what is good about
them, while reforming what is bad. There are currently two
main approaches, largely following William Caplin's theory of
formal functions on the one hand, and Hepokoski and
Darcy's Sonata Theory on the other.

Caplin's theory of formal functions (which is largely inspired

by Schoenberg) goes into a lot more detail than the old
formenlehre did, but also attempts to give some meaning to
otherwise empty classifications. No longer is labelling the
first and second theme, exposition or development section
enough: Caplin classifies themes into sentences, periods and
hybrid forms. He even goes down onto the scale of one or
two bar units, breaking these themes down into their
constituent 'formal functions' (from where the theory gets its
name). This is where his theory is at its best, and where it is
most superior to the old Formenlehre. Instead of just
classifying sections and giving general descriptions of what
these sections are meant to be like (such as the infamous
'masculine' and 'feminine' characterisations of the first and
second themes), he describes the temporal effect these
functions have in terms of whether they create the sense of
'beginning-ness', 'middle-ness' or 'end-ness'. This means
that when the music departs from the standard types, as it
frequently does, this theory is still able to offer an analysis
which describes its effect in some considerable detail.

Hepokoski and Darcy's Sonata Theory also goes into a lot

more detail, and attempts to breathe life into the
classifications, but does so entirely differently. Taking each
stage of sonata form in turn, they enumerate the most
standard types of things the music does at this point (called
'norms', and order these in terms of their frequency. Thus, a
piece of music at each stage can either do something
normal, something fairly normal but still noteworthy, or
something completely unusual, in which case the norm is
overridden in what they call a 'deformation'. What the norms
for a piece of music are change with when it was written: for
example, in the eighteenth century, it was normal for a
major-mode exposition to modulate to the dominant for the
second theme and doing anything else would be a serious
deformation, while by the end of the nineteenth century,
alternative key choices to the dominant were quite common,
and perhaps only worthy of passing comment in an analysis.
In their view, a competent listener of a piece in sonata form
hears the music against the background of these norms, and
the music is powerful by using these norms in inventive,
clever and/or expressive ways.

I can answer any questions concerning this stuff, at least the

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more recent of it. I've had to make a few generalisations so

sorry if anything is unclear. General discussion and
comments are the purpose of this thread however.

If anyone is interested to look further, the most important

references are:

William Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions

for the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven,
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).

James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, Elements of Sonata

Theory: Norms, Types and Deformations in the Late-
Eighteenth-Century Sonata, (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006).

Last edited by Ramako; Feb-19-2015 at 00:35.

Haydn Symphonies threads.

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Feb-19-2015, 14:27 #2

EdwardBast
Senior Member

Originally Posted by Ramako

Formenlehre, which is basically the German for 'the

study of form', is quite an old discipline in music theory
fully established in the nineteenth century with, for
example, A.B. Marx's codification of sonata form?
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 3,654
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Although Marx wrote about "textbook" sonata form, it is
Blog Entries: 8
worth pointing out that Antoine Reicha codified the form
much earlier, in his Traité de haute composition musicale
(1824-26). The textbook form is, as your post suggests, a
kind of prescription for an ideal type accommodating
romantic conceptions of the form rather than actually
describing the general practice of the Classical Era.

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Originally Posted by Ramako

Instead of just classifying sections and giving general

descriptions of what these sections are meant to be like
(such as the infamous 'masculine' and 'feminine'
characterisations of the first and second themes),
[Caplin] describes the temporal effect these functions
have in terms of whether they create the sense of
'beginning-ness', 'middle-ness' or 'end-ness'.

The "characterizations" to which you refer are only infamous

because Susan McClary took them out of context in order to
politicize them. She cited an isolated passage in a didactic
work in which Marx employed a metaphor which he was
careful to qualify as only partially applicable. Anyone who
knows Marx's criticism and other writing, and McClary
demonstrates no familiarity, knows that this characterization
had nothing to do with his general thinking on sonata form.

Last edited by EdwardBast; Feb-19-2015 at 17:40.

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Feb-19-2015, 14:51 #3

Dim7
Senior Member
As far as I understand the "contrasting characters"
("masculine" and "feminine") of theme groups was more of a
romantic than classical thing, or was it?

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Feb-19-2015, 14:56 #4

EdwardBast
Senior Member
---- Consolidated into my first post ----

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Last edited by EdwardBast; Feb-19-2015 at 15:03.

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Feb-19-2015, 15:01 #5

EdwardBast
Senior Member

Originally Posted by Dim7

As far as I understand the "contrasting characters"

("masculine" and "feminine") of theme groups was
more of a romantic than classical thing, or was it?
Join Date: Nov 2013
Posts: 3,654
Yes, as Ramako hints, this idea of thematic contrast or even
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opposition was a prescription for romantic composers
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interested in reproducing the dramatic effects of archetypal
works by Mozart and Beethoven (e.g., Mozart 40/i and
Beethoven 5/i) and has nothing in particular to do with
classical practice.

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Mar-10-2015, 18:06 #6

millionrainbows
Senior Member
In his Structural Functions of Harmony, Schoenberg
gives us his classifications of root movements, which are
ascending or descending (strong or weak).

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"The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this
method?"
-Confucious

"In Spring! In the creation of art it must be as it is in Spring!" -Arnold

Schoenberg

"We only become what we are by the radical and deep-seated refusal
of that which others have made us." -Jean-Paul Sartre

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