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.
Recapitulation
The final section of sonata form, where both themes return in the tonic, resolving the tonal tension set up by the exposition.
Also called: Recapitulation section, Return
The recapitulation is the return section of sonata form, in which the themes of the exposition come back and the music settles in the tonic. The first theme returns as it did at the opening. The second theme, which appeared in the dominant or relative major in the exposition, now sounds in the tonic, so the movement closes in its home key. In C major, the second theme is in G in the exposition and in C in the recapitulation. Transitional material is often altered so that it stays in the tonic, and the movement may end with a coda. The recapitulation resolves the tonal conflict that the exposition set up and the development explored.
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.
- DevelopmentThe middle section of sonata form, where themes from the exposition are fragmented, sequenced and moved through remote keys before the recapitulation.
- Authentic cadenceA close from the dominant to the tonic, V to I or V7 to I, which ends a phrase. Its perfect and imperfect forms differ in strength.