Scan 226
The American History and Encyclopedia of Music, 1910
4 lines. Read by computer on 10 September 2026. Printed page 194. See the scan on archive.org.
1In all of the longer and many of the first rondo forms the composition was opened by an introduction and terminated by a coda, both of which may vary in length.
3The culmination of the classical form is found in the sonata. The word is derived from a Latin word meaning "sound" and was first used in distinction to the toccata, a piece of execution merely. By all composers it has been the name applied to the best form of instrumental music of the time and as now used the name stands for a definite musical composition comprising two or more movements. Most commonly there are three of these parts, often five and occasionally even more. The sonata is a direct outgrowth of the old suite and came into existence, though not in its present classic form, with the perfection of the violin by the Italian instrument makers. The violin places so few restrictions upon the musician as there is so little mechanism between player and instrument, that when it was made so perfect as to respond to every mood of the musician, he began to experiment and to overcome, by skill in stopping and bowing, the mechanical difficulties which had before prevented him from obtaining the finest, purest tone and fluency of motion. The violin is a solo instrument and the contrapuntal devices which had been occupying the attention of composers were not fitted to this instrument and an effort was made to find a more suitable form which would depend upon the correct handling of melodic passages accompanied by simple harmonies, rather than interwoven melodies which depend upon themselves for accompaniment. As we have seen, the purely dance tunes had already been grouped and several woven into one composition, but now musicians felt the need of a more unified form, something that would admit of melodic expression, give an impression of definite tonality and retain the rhythmic vitality necessary to all instrumental music. They used the method of form adopted in the dance movements of the suites, but improved upon it by making more definite the subjects used, by elaborating the divisions, varying the key and making the parts balance each other more perfectly.
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