The Relaxant Finale

Abstract The relationship of any finale to its companion movements is partly one of similarity, partly one of difference. If it is totally similar, it loses its raison deter as a separate movement; if it is totally different, it violates the broad principle of unity or (if one prefers) coherence. In a conventional three-movement or four-movement plan its relationship to the first movement is crucial for two reasons: the two movements are both fast (a factor that makes their direct comparison appropriate), and they occupy strategically equivalent (though, as we saw, very different) positions framing the rest of the work To a lesser extent, a finale has to position itself visavis the interior movements, and in particular the minuet, scherzo, or similar movement in a four-movement cycle. Its relationship to the minuet (etc.) is naturally most conspicuous when the two movements are adjacent: that is, when the minuet comes third rather than second, as it does most often from Haydn onwards until the late nineteenth century.