The Minor-Mode Sonata

Minor-mode sonatas constitute a special case within classical—and later—sonata practice. In part this is because of the special affective quality historically assigned to the minor mode, along with many of the characteristic moods and colors associated with it. This chapter elaborates the “extra burden” of sonata forms in the minor mode, which often entails its drive—often thwarted—to be converted into the major, a drama that rose to central importance only in the last two or three decades of the eighteenth century, with Haydn playing a large role in it. Supplementing and updating the consideration of minor-mode sonatas in Elements of Sonata Theory, this chapter also incorporates new information gleaned from Riley’s and Graves’s separate studies of eighteenth-century minor-mode practice. Issues covered include the affective range of the minor mode; standardized minor-mode styles and “topics”; characteristic intervallic figures (like the “pathotype” figure); the aspiration and techniques of “escape into the major,” whether locally or permanently; the eighteenth-century convention of the “mediant tutti”; and the evolving concept of “tragic plot/comic plot,” relating to whether the sonata will end in minor or overcome that minor by a modal reversal into the major.