Form
Sonata Form: The Tonal Plot
Sonata form is a tonal argument, not a set of labelled boxes. What matters is which key you are in, and how the music gets home again.
Development
The middle section of sonata form, where themes from the exposition are fragmented, sequenced and moved through remote keys before the recapitulation.
Also called: Development section, Durchführung
A development is the central section of sonata form, between the exposition and the recapitulation. It takes the themes of the exposition and works on them: motifs are fragmented, sequenced, combined or transposed into remote keys. The development is often the most harmonically unstable part of a movement, using secondary dominants, diminished chords and rapid modulation. It ends by preparing the return of the tonic, typically with a dominant pedal or a long dominant chord that leads into the recapitulation. In a C major movement, a development might begin in E♭ and build over a dominant pedal on G before the tonic returns. The development has no fixed key plan, which makes it the most flexible section of the form.
Related terms
- Sonata formThe form of many first movements: an exposition of two contrasting themes, a development, and a recapitulation that returns both themes in the tonic.
- ExpositionThe opening section of a sonata-form movement or a fugue, in which the main themes or subject are presented before any development.
- RecapitulationThe final section of sonata form, where both themes return in the tonic, resolving the tonal tension set up by the exposition.
- MotifA short melodic, rhythmic or harmonic idea that recurs and develops across a piece, serving as its basic thematic unit.