The Conventional Progressive: Sonata Strategies In Berwald's Sinfonie Singulière

Abstract

This analysis of the first movement of Berwald's Third Symphony (Sinfonie Singulière) of 1845 incorporates elements of Hepokoski and Darcy's Sonata Theory as well as Caplin's theory of formal functions. At the same time, it stresses the importance of galant precedent at both the formal and syntactical levels by drawing on Robert O. Gjerdingen's study of galant style. By contextualizing this movement within contemporaneous practice, this reading provides a historically situated corrective to our current understanding of Berwald's music while also focusing long-overdue attention on this marginalized composer. The movement, which is in dialogue with Type-2 logic, can usefully be interpreted as an alternative response to the creative challenge of large-scale form. The analysis contrib utes to the discourse on sonata typologies and seeks to question the prevailing narrative that the Type-3 paradigm was an evolution of the "primative" binary sonata forms. I posit that the innovative and original Type-2 sonata form problematizes and resists straight forward chronological narratives of historical progress in which the Type-3 sonata occu pies a dominant position. This sets Berwald apart from his Nordic contemporaries, Gade and Svendsen, and positions him as an important and progressive mid-century voice.