The Sonata-Form Finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

Abstract

know or can reasonably presume about the processes of creative thinking of its time and its originator. The credibility of a musical analysis thus hinges on its compatibility with historically appropriate modes of conception. A negative case in point is Felix Salzer's Schenkerian approach to the polyphony of Perotinus with its anachronistic disregard of the practical and theoretical conditions of that composer's craft.' An explication of the first movement of a classical symphony that eschews or misrepresents the structural design generally referred to as sonata form would likewise have to be faulted