Sonata Form - Exposition, Development & Recapitulation

Sonata Form

The Classical era is all about Balance, Symmetry and Sense. This is why they loved to write in Sonata form.

Simplified, a Sonata form is ABA. When you look closer at it, it has some rules and follows a specific formula.

This is a presentation I like to use to describe the format a Sonata form follows. Have a click through and see if you can follow the format.


So a sonata form follows 3 clear sections:

• Exposition
• Development
• Recapitulation

The Exposition contains: 1st Subject, 2nd Subject (in the dominant key - that's a 5th higher) and a coda.

The Development takes the Subjects and plays around with them - up or down octaves, tempo, relative minor, modulations, sequences...

then the Recapitulation ends with a re-assertion of the 1st and 2nd subject, except this time the 2nd subject is in the same key as the 1st.

This video breaks down where these things happen in our old favourite K545. See if you can follow what is going on.

Sonata form was a really popular structure in the Classical era - so popular it was known as "First movement form" because composers would almost always start their string quartets or symphonies with a Sonata form movement.

Here is a playlist full of Classical pieces in Sonata form. Listen out for the 2 main subjects, then what goes on in the development, and finally the recapitulation...