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Topic: Analysing Beethovens "Moonlight" Sonata 2nd Mvt  (Read 4783 times)

Offline fuel925

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Analysing Beethovens "Moonlight" Sonata 2nd Mvt
on: March 09, 2005, 12:34:44 AM
As part of the theory for my upcoming exam I need to briefly analyse the 2nd movement of the moonlight sonata (allegretto and trio). At the moment I am concentrating on sonata form, and I am referring to the book "A Companion to Beethovens Pianoforte Sonatas" by Donald Francis Tovy. Heres the text it gives me for the Allegretto. Writing in the brackets is my own:

Lyrics Da Capo movement in the tonic major (Key is Db Major as opposed to C# Minor of the first movement).

1-8  Epigrammatic couplets playing with the antithesis of tonic-to-dominant and subdominant-to-tonic. (Me and my teacher looked at the first few bars, and tried to fit this "tonic to dominant and subdominant to tonic" text to the music, which fit for the first bar but didnt work from then on.)

9-16  The repetition of the first strain is written in full, being varied by syncopation. (pretty self explanatory, but by first strain does it mean the previous bars? i.e. bars 1-8?)

17-24  Middle strain in descending sequences ending on half-close leading to... (whats a half-close?)

25-36  ...Expansion of first strain, combining the plain and syncopated versions and insisting on bars 5-6, making a climax before the final close. Repeat bars 17-36.


Could someone who has some knowledge of this please maybe reword the above text into something I could understand better? This book is full of useful information, but unfortunately the wording is not very user friendly. Any help at all with this would be very appreciated :)

Thanks
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