Volume 27, Number 16 · October 23, 1980
Theme and Variations
By Joseph Kerman
Sonata Forms
by Charles Rosen
Norton, 344 pp., $14.95
What Charles Rosen does to the concept of sonata form in this book is not so much deconstruction—though there is some of that, as we shall see—but rather reconstruction. The old textbook definition of sonata form has been hammered away at on many occasions; Rosen himself did a pretty thorough job of pulverization in The Classical Style of 1971. Now he builds a whole new book out of the dust. It is a paradoxical and brilliant performance.
Review, 3021 words
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