Sonata Research Paper

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Sonata

The term Sonata comes from Italian and Latin and means ‘to sound’. (Sonata) Instead of singing, the Sonata is an instrumental work, made for one instrument or a small group of instruments made out of three or four movements. (Music of the Classical Period) The Merriam-Webster Dictionary adds that these movements typically contrast each other in rhythm and mood.

In the Baroque, the term Sonata was applied to a variety of works for instruments. From the Baroque to the Classical period, the term Sonata went through a change in meaning, now used for a chamber-music genre for either a solo instrument or a solo melody with piano. However, after 1800 the term began to be applied to a large-scale musical arrangement. (Sonata)
The Sonata …show more content…

It is also during this period that the three- and four-movement layouts became a discussion with the four-movement form being determined as the better. (Sonata)

The role of the sonata as an extremely important form of musical arrangement still inspires people to work with and compose and perform new works in this very traditional form. (Sonata)
This example for the Sonata will be one of the most famous, the Moonlight Sonata. For being such a famous piece it doesn’t follow traditional sonata style, in which the movements are fast, slow, fast. In the Moonlight Sonata the movements are slow, slow, fast. His original subtitle for the Moonlight Sonata, which is his 14th sonata was Quasi una Fantasia. It didn’t gain its famous name until 5 years after Beethoven’s death. ("Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata - Profundity and Grace)
The sonata is a major part of musical history because it started the focus on instrumental music rather than vocal. The sonata was one of my favorite types of instrumental work before this but now I know even more about how important the sonata was to instrumental music. I also learned quite a lot about how the sonata is set up and its history from a general term to a very specific definition in

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