IN THEIR OWN WORDS

An Eighteenth-Century Description of the Symphony
and Sonata Form: Heinrich Koch, Introductory Essay
on Composition (3 vols., 1782–1793)
Today, music historians describe the characteristics of musical genres, such as the
symphony and the concerto, and musical forms, such as sonata and rondo form, of
music of the Classical period. Yet these descriptions inevitably are colored by more
than 200 of thinking about how Classical music was heard in its day and how the
music should be analyzed. But what did the people of the eighteenth century think
of the genres of the symphony or of sonata form, for example? What sort of features
of the symphony did they describe, and how did they analyze sonata form in ways
that differ from the descriptions found in a textbook of today? Heinrich Koch’s
Introductory Essay on Composition tells us.
Heinrich Koch (1749–1816) was what we might call a musical polymath: per-
forming musician, music critic, music historian, and music theorist all rolled into
one. He worked at various court centers in northern Germany and between 1782
and 1793 published a massive three-volume composition manual. In more than
1,200 pages he discusses various approaches to composition; engages in formal anal-
yses using the modern music repertoire of the day, including works of Haydn and
Mozart; and discusses the nature of the principal musical genres of the period: sym-
phony, concerto, string quartet, sonata, and opera overture among them. Koch’s
description of sonata form is the most detailed then to have appeared in print.
Although he does not use the vocabulary that we presently employ in describing
sonata form, the model that he propounds is well on the way to a description of
sonata form similar to the one found in Chapter 44. (Our analytical terms exposition,
development, and recapitulation, for example, appear only gradually in France and
Germany during the nineteenth century.) The framework of his model is clearly
binary form, but a binary form greatly expanded. (A vestige of the original I-V:V-I
tonal plan of early eighteenth-century binary form can be seen in the acknowledg-
ment that in the “recapitulation” the first theme might return in the dominant key
before moving back to the tonic.) In the translation that follows, modern terminol-
ogy (such as “recapitulation”) has been inserted from time to time, in an attempt to
clarify Koch’s meaning.
100: About the Symphony
The symphony is a four-voice instrumental piece, whose performance is carried out by
four principal instruments, namely the first and second violin, viola, and bass. It can
serve as an introduction to a play or a cantata, as well as an opening to a chamber or
public concert. In the first case, it often exists only as a one-movement piece; in the
other, however, it usually contains three movements of different character. The first
Allegro usually has the character of pomp and magnificence, the Andante of introspec-
tion, and the last Allegro of happy times.
Because the symphony is the sort of piece that a composer specializing in instru-
mental music would want to emphasize, it is appropriate here to offer a more detailed
description [one coming from Johann Georg] Sulzer’s General Theory of the Fine Arts
[1771–1774]. . . .
“The symphony is an expression of the grand, of the celebratory, and of the magnifi-
cent. Its goal is to prepare the listener for the most important music, or in an [inde-
pendent] chamber concert to demonstrate all the splendor of instrumental music.

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In order entirely to satisfy this aim and be an integral part of the opera or the
church music that is to follow, the symphony should, in addition to suggesting the
grand and the festive, put the listener in the proper frame of mind for what follows,
and make apparent by means of the art of composition what is distinctive about
church and theater music.
The independent symphony is entirely free standing, unconnected to any fol-
lowing music, achieving its end only through its volume and fiery style. The Allegro
of the best symphonies contains broad, bold ideas—powerful bass melodies and uni-
son writing, concertante middle voices, free imitation, often a single theme that is
treated fugally, sudden transitions and changes from one key to another that tend
to be more striking if they are not closely related, sharp distinctions between louds
and softs, and especially the crescendo, which if combined with a rising, expressive
melody, will achieve a particularly brilliant effect.
The Andante or Largo between the first and last Allegro has, needless to say,
a completely different character. It is often introspective, full of pathos, or replete
with sadness. Yet it must have a dignity that is worthy of the symphony.
The symphony preceding an opera has more or less the same quality as the in-
dependent symphony, but suited to the character of the opera that is to follow. Yet
it appears that it does not have to be as extravagant or as thoroughly worked out,
because the listener is concentrating more on what is about to happen in the opera
than on the symphony itself.” [end of extract from Sulzer]

101. [Sonata Form in the First Movement of a Symphony]

The first Allegro of a symphony—to which the above description primarily applies—
has two sections [today called (1) exposition and (2) development and recapitulation],
which the composer may or may not wish to be repeated. The first of these, which sets
the general tenor of the entire symphony, presents the main melodic ideas in their
original order, and thereafter only a few main phrases are heard. Often there occurs
after the cadence of these a clarifying phrase but one which closes in the same key as
the preceding had closed, and it should be thus understood as only an afterthought to the
preceding section, and the two together can be thought of as belonging to one and the
same section.
The structure of this opening section (as well as the remaining sections of the sym-
phony) are distinguished from the sectional construction of the sonata and the con-
certo not by the fact that it goes to different keys, nor through the alternation of tonic
and dominant chords, but rather in these two ways: (1) the melodic elements tend al-
ready to be more extended than in other genres, and (2) the melodic elements are more
unified and are subjected to more elaboration or integration than in this section of
other musical genres; that is to say, they are connected so that their phrase endings are
not so obvious. Oftentimes the following melodic idea is connected to the pitch of the
caesura [the tonality of the new theme is that of the key in which the transition ended].
And often there is no formal ending but rather only a transition from the rushing, loud
material to a generally reduced amount of volume. Indeed one can find many such
sections in which no formal ending can be heard until there has already been a modu-
lation to a closely related key. The main melodic ideas are not usually presented all
in the main key, neither in the symphony nor in other genres. Instead, after the main
theme has been presented with its secondary division, the music usually progresses with
the tertiary idea through a modulation to the dominant key (and in the weaker [minor]
key to the third degree), in which the remaining material will be presented because the
second and larger half of this [first] section is devoted to this [new] key.
Newer symphonies often are supplied with a short introduction before the Allegro
possessing a slow tempo and a serious character. This introduction differs from the
grave of the overture in that it has neither distinctive motives nor a distinctive meter,
 
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as does the overture [the French overture, for example, usually has a grave tempo and
double-dotted configurations]. Rather, it can employ any meter and any figurations
that are serious in character. This introduction is also distinguished by the fact that it
stays in the main key, aside from transitory modulations, and ends on the dominant
or with a cadence. Often a seventh will be added to the dominant chord and supplied
with a fermata, which binds it to the following Allegro, that is to say, the caesura pitch
of the cadential chord, is also the beginning pitch of the Allegro.
102: [Compositional Process in the Development]
The second section of the Allegro consists of two parts [the development and recapitu-
lation], the first of which tends to make use of a variety of compositional techniques,
but these can be usefully reduced to just two. The first and most common technique
is to start in the dominant key with the theme and sometimes with another main me-
lodic idea, either note for note or in invention, or with some other kind of alteration,
which then leads back, perhaps employing another melodic idea, to the tonic key, and
from here to the minor key of the sixth degree, or also the minor key of the second
or third degree. Or, the modulation might not go at first to the tonic key, but rather
the phrase that goes from the dominant into one above-mentioned keys will drive
through a sequence or another type or progression, generating along the way
more thorough-going development. Then a few of those melodic phrases that work
best in these tonalities should be incorporated in other combinations than they had
appeared in the first section of the piece [the exposition]. At this point this part
[development] concludes in this key.
The second part [recapitulation] of this second section of the symphony is usually
preceded by a short passage [retransition] making use of a motive drawn from the main
thematic material and that unfolds as a sequential progression. By means of the prog-
ress of this modulation, we arrive back in the tonic key, which will carry through for
the last main part [recapitulation].
The second compositional technique found in this [first part of the second] section
[the development] very often in modern symphonies involves taking a theme from the
first section, or often only a section of it, that is particularly useful for this purpose and
placing it either in the upper voice or perhaps alternately in the other voices only, dis-
sected or transposed, sometimes to closely related keys and sometimes to distant ones.
Eventually the key is reached in which the [development] section will end. This occurs
either until an ending in the dominant chord is reached, or the material will continue
in a similar way until the conclusion of the entire part. (When we get to the part of
this book dealing with the unification of sections, we will see an example of this.)
If the fragmentation of such a phrase continues only to the concluding dominant chord,
then after this dominant chord some melodic material from the first section, usually in
an altered form, should be inserted in this key, before the cadence is reached. Examples
of this process can be found in many symphonies by Haydn and almost all of those
of [Karl Ditters von] Dittersdorf [1739–1799]. Likewise in this second compositional
approach [to the development section], the conclusion is supplied with an appendix
[the retransition] in which the modulation leads back to the start of the last part
[recapitulation] in the tonic key.
Moreover, one sometimes encounters in the modern symphony instances in which
the second part [the recapitulation] doesn’t begin in dominant [this seems to be a
reference to the old binary form, in which the main theme returned in the dominant
before the key changed back to the tonic], but in an entirely unexpected key either
without any preparation or by means of only a few tones that follow the cadence in the
dominant.

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103: [The Recapitulation]

The final part of our first Allegro, which is primarily concerned with the modulation
back to the tonic key, begins usually with the theme, but sometimes also with another
melodic idea in this key. Now the main musical material is compressed, during which
the tonality of the fourth [subdominant] is commonly reached but no cadence is
effected. Soon the tonic key again returns. Finally, the second half of the first section
(those melodic ideas of the first section which come after the medial caesura in the
dominant) will be repeated in this tonic key, and with that the Allegro closes.

Source: Extracts translated from the original German of Versuch einer Anleitung zur Composition, Vol. III
(facsimile, 1969), p. 304ff.