Haydn, Sonata Form, and Schenker

A year ago, I proposed a perspective that correlated two oddities. The first oddity is a voice-leading and formal irreconcilability that arises when applying Schenker's theory to sonata-form recapitulations, particularly secondary themes. The second oddity is a set of interesting alterations that Mozart made in the lead-up to the recapitulation of his secondary theme in the first movement of his Piano Sonata in C Major, K. 279. The second oddity appears to mitigate the first oddity, because scale degree 3, which is the primary treble tone for the entire movement, receives more emphasis at the beginning of the subordinate theme in the recapitulation than it did in the beginning of the subordinate theme in the exposition. This makes the recap's subordinate theme a clearer vehicle for the movement's ultimate tonal closure: transporting scale degree 3 down by step to the final scale degree 1.

Something similar happens in the last movement of Joseph Haydn's last (and, according to some, his greatest) piano sonata in E-flat major. Here is the beginning of the movement, which presents the primary theme. In the third issue of his self-authored periodical Der Tonwille, Schenker designates scale degree 5 (B flat) as the primary treble tone for the movement. I choose scale degree 3 (G) instead.

In general, Haydn is well known for making witty and sometimes surreptitious alterations to the recapitulations of his secondary themes, rather than merely producing the secondary theme of the recapitulation by "copying, pasting, and transposing" the exposition's subordinate theme into the tonic key. The examples below compare two moments in the subordinate theme ("S-theme") of the exposition to their corresponding moments in the recapitulation. In both of these moments, an F (scale degree 2 in the main key, and scale degree 5 in the subordinate key) is replaced by G (scale degree 3 in the main key) instead of a B flat, which is the note that a simple "copy-paste" transposition would have delivered. Both of these moments are initiating moments, and the first in particular, with its five repeated eighth notes, harkens back to the primary theme's initiation. They encourage a reinterpretation of the recap's secondary theme's treble line as tracing an overall 3-2-1 path instead of an overall 5-4-3-2-1 path as it more likely did in the exposition. Like my interpretation of K. 279/i, this interpretation of Haydn XVI:52/iii better connects the primary treble tone of the primary theme in the exposition and recapitulation to the secondary theme's initiating tone in the recapitulation.