Andrew Aziz on Merging the Sonata and the Concerto: Analysis of "Compositional" Improvisation in the High Classical Sonata

Merging the Sonata and the Concerto: Analysis of "Compositional" Improvisation in the High Classical Sonata

4 PM, February 28, CAC third floor conference room

This presentation raises the issue of improvisational structures within masterworks of the High Classical period and reexamines the definition of “analyzing improvisation.” While the aesthetic of improvisation is often built into fantasia and concerto forms, I examine virtuosic passages within sonata form, which tend to resist analysis and blur the lines between compositional and improvisational domains. Part I first explores treatises by Koch (1793) and Galeazzi (1796), which prescribe possibilities for how composers might expand the second half of a sonata’s subordinate theme zone, analogous to an expanded Caplinian continuation (1998).
 
Since the virtuosity within such an episode invokes rhetoric found in concertos, Part II inserts concerto perspectives into theories of (solo) sonata form, using Dahlhaus’s “display episode” (1991) as a point of departure. While his episode encompasses only solo works, Hepokoski and Darcy (2006) apply the same term exclusively to concerto expositions and recapitulations; their passages, however, are not loosely-knit continuations within a larger sentential structure, but rather closed and autonomous structures that begin and end with a stable tonic. Their theory exposes an ambiguous and yet crucial point: the display episode may flexibly function within either the subordinate group or as part of the closing zone. The remainder of the paper showcases several examples in the solo piano sonata literature that highlight the display episode functioning in precisely the same manner as Hepokoski and Darcy’s concerto display episodes—sans orchestral accompaniment—thus becoming an integral part of the Formenlehre toolbox.

Andrew Aziz is Assistant Professor of Music Theory at San Diego State University, having completed his doctorate at the Eastman School of Music; previously, he held faculty posts at Brown University, Rhode Island College, and Florida State University. His primary research interest explores the perception of form throughout common practice and fin-de-siècle repertoire; he has presented on these topics and others at over twenty-five regional, national, and international conferences. Most recently, he was selected for University of Oregon's prestigious Distinguished Lecture Series in honor of Steve Larson. His publications can be found in Journal of Music Theory Pedagogy (2015, 2018), Music Theory Online (2014, 2015), Proceedings of EuroMac IX (2017), Sonus (2016), and forthcoming in Music Analysis.

This lecture is part of the UCI Music Department's Annual Musicology Lecture Series (click for more information)

Dates: 
February 28, 2019 - 4:00pm