Sonata Form

Sonata form is the central structural design of Western classical music from the mid-eighteenth century onward: a movement organised as exposition, development and recapitulation, in which two contrasting thematic groups, first heard in different keys, are destabilised and then reconciled in the tonic. It governs the first movements of symphonies, concertos, string quartets and piano sonatas from *Haydn* and *Mozart* through *Beethoven* — who stretched it to dramatic breaking point — to the Romantics and beyond. More than a template, it is a way of making harmony itself tell a story of departure, conflict and return.