thumb|upright=1.3|[[Ludwig van Beethoven's manuscript sketch for Piano Sonata No. 28, Movement IV Geschwind, doch nicht zu sehr und mit Entschlossenheit (Allegro), in his own handwriting. The piece was completed in 1816.]]

In music, a sonata (; pl. sonate) is a piece that consists of 3 or 4 movements that can be for different musical instruments. The term evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms until the Classical era, when it took on increasing importance. Sonata is a vague term, with varying meanings depending on the context and time period. By the early 19th century it came to represent a principle of composing large-scale works. It was applied to most instrumental genres and regarded—alongside the fugue—as one of two fundamental methods of organizing, interpreting and analyzing concert music. Though the musical style of sonatas has changed since the Classical era, most 20th- and 21st-century sonatas maintain the overarching structure.

The term sonatina, pl. sonatine, the diminutive form of sonata, is often used for a short or technically easy sonata.

Instrumentation

In the Baroque period, a sonata was for one or more instruments, almost always with continuo. After the Baroque period most works designated as sonatas specifically are performed by a solo instrument, most often a keyboard instrument, or by a solo instrument accompanied by a keyboard instrument.

Sonatas for a solo instrument other than keyboard have been composed, as have sonatas for other combinations of instruments.

There are some general guidelines a typical sonata might follow, however, the term sonata still hadn’t taken shape yet in the 17th century because of the sinfonia conflating the term. Sinfonia were pieces played by multiple instruments together, upholding the characteristics of the imitative canzona. The sinfonia showed precursors to the introductory movement of sonata form today. As newer types of canzonas and concertos began to form (called stile moderno), the sonata was still an ambiguous genre because many characteristics of other forms became entangled with early sonatas.

The sonata finally began to become a separate entity starting in the 17th to 18th centuries when the canzona became less popular and the suite, concerto, and sonata all developed in different directions. In short, a suite is a sequence of movements based on dance movements, whereas sonatas do not possess complete dance like movements. Sonatas can contain movements assembled from parts of dance movements, but the passages are not formal enough to be called a suite. Sonatas were standardized to either fall into being a sonata da camera, “chamber sonata,” or a sonata da chiesa, “church sonata.” Corelli’s twelve trio sonatas, Op. 2, were foundational to the development of the sonata and an example of 12 chamber trio sonatas, Op. 2, in 1685. Corelli’s prolific work in his trio sonatas inspired Bach, Vivaldi, Handel, and Telemann.

The sonata and the suite were two forms that experienced overlap in France, Germany, and England; however, they remained separate in Italy because the scoring criteria were different. Beste writes that during this time period, the keyboard repertoire evolved with the sonata as Bach was writing his keyboard suites, with BWV 825-30 being called “partitas.” Beste writes on the partita that “By the late seventeenth century, however, [the partita] had come to denote a multi-movement instrumental cycle, either still as a set of variations or as a succession of dances. Only in its latter connotation does it overlap with the sonata, and only in a specific instrumental and geographical context: its widespread currency is limited to Germany, and to the solo keyboard repertoire (12). The overlap between sonata and partita is interesting to consider looking at Bach’s unaccompanied sonatas for violin, as Beste writes “they conform to the four-movement ‘church sonata’ pattern established by Corelli, for which no other generic term was available. The partitas, on the other hand, borrow their designation from the keyboard repertoire, as multi-movement dance cycles for solo instrument.”

History

Baroque

thumb|upright=1.4|Individual sheet music of a sonata, written in the Baroque period.

In the works of Arcangelo Corelli and his contemporaries, two broad classes of sonata were established, and were first described by Sébastien de Brossard in his Dictionaire de musique (third edition, Amsterdam, ca. 1710): the sonata da chiesa (that is, suitable for use in church), which was the type "rightly known as Sonatas", and the sonata da camera (proper for use at court), which consists of a prelude followed by a succession of dances, all in the same key.

  • Alexander Scriabin
  • Piano Sonata No. 2 (Sonata-Fantasy)
  • Piano Sonata No. 3
  • Piano Sonata No. 4
  • Piano Sonata No. 5
  • Piano Sonata No. 6
  • Piano Sonata No. 7 "White Mass"
  • Piano Sonata No. 8
  • Piano Sonata No. 9 "Black Mass"
  • Piano Sonata No. 10
  • Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji
  • Piano Sonata No. 0
  • Piano Sonata No. 1
  • Piano Sonata No. 2
  • Piano Sonata No. 3
  • Piano Sonata No. 4
  • Piano Sonata No. 5 "Opus Archimagicum"
  • Igor Stravinsky
  • Sonata for Two Pianos (1943)
  • Eugène Ysaÿe
  • Six Sonatas for solo violin (1923)

Notes