Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Syntax and Process in the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, Op. 66

Horton, Julian

Syntax and Process in the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, Op. 66 Thumbnail


Authors



Contributors

Benedict Taylor
Editor

Abstract

This chapter develops the claim that Felix Mendelssohn’s pivotal innovation in the realm of instrumental form lies in his strikingly post-classical response to the relationship between form and syntax. The C minor Piano Trio, Op. 66, reveals a rich array of syntactic habits that depart fundamentally from high-classical precedent. Expositional main-theme groups betray ‘loosening’ techniques, which greatly enlarge their dimensions; conversely, main-theme recapitulations are subjected to rigorous truncation. In between, functional elisions and cadential deferrals, achieved by the maintenance of active bass progressions across formal divisions, promote a degree of continuity that problematizes late-eighteenth-century notions of formal demarcation. These techniques unseat Mendelssohn’s classicist image. In Op. 66, the music’s Mozartian facility masks a technical radicalism, which is one of the defining contributions to the development of Romantic form.

Citation

Horton, J. (2020). Syntax and Process in the First Movement of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio, Op. 66. In B. Taylor (Ed.), Rethinking Mendelssohn. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190611781.003.0011

Online Publication Date Jul 1, 2020
Publication Date Jul 1, 2020
Deposit Date Oct 4, 2019
Publicly Available Date Jul 1, 2022
Publisher Oxford University Press
Book Title Rethinking Mendelssohn.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190611781.003.0011
Publisher URL https://global.oup.com/academic/product/rethinking-mendelssohn-9780190611781

Files




You might also like



Downloadable Citations