Performance-Related Solutions of the Graphic Structures of Haydn’s Clavier Sonatas

Abstract

The article examines the intonational lexis of the pastoral in the fast movements of Haydn’s piano sonatas. The greater part of the semantic figures is used in all the sections of the sonata expositions: the cliche formulas which imitate the sounds of various musical instruments, the gallant style lexis, as well as intonations of ornamental nature. However, while in the slow movements the semantic figures present themselves in the conditions of correspondence of the direct meanings of the signs to the artistic notion of the context (most frequently – the creation of the effect of a melancholy contemplative pastoral), the conditions of fast tempi demonstrate a different, transforming impact of the context on the substantive filling of the semantic structures. Haydn’s sonatas form new types of the pastoral, in which the role of the main regulator in the mechanism of semantic transformations is played by tempo. The author of the article demonstrates the dramatic pastoral in a set of Haydn’s sonatas, where unlike the idyll of the “minuet” movements, the fast-paced tempo creates the effect of dynamic action. The dramatic context is expressed, first of all, in the elaboration of storylinescenic situations and the emotional reactions of the “dramatic protagonists.” The sensual nature of the pastoral obtains a new angle, which in various different theatrical-dramatic actuations disclose a multiplicity of semantic and emotional tints of pastoral lyricism. Keywords: classical sonata, Joseph Haydn, the pastoral, intonational lexis, musical thematicism.