Sonata Theory in the Undergraduate Classroom

Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy have committed themselves to changing the way we hear and think about sonata form. Dissatisfied with traditional schematic or architectural approaches to the form, these authors have long advocated a dynamic, action- and expression-oriented model of the genre - one that revives familiar nineteenth- and twentieth-century traditions of narrative/humanistic analysis (a la Marx and Tovey) while also providing a framework for rigorous analysis of musical details and processes. Their enterprise, Sonata Theory (always capitalized), has made significant inroads with professional analysts but remains mostly unknown outside of academia.