ABSTRACT
Sonata Theory aims to facilitate issues of musical and cultural meaning. We regard the multiple meaning-systems present within musical compositions as conceptually divisible into these two tracks, which are often treated singly or separately. Toward the end of bringing them together—or at least much closer—the theory seeks in its vectored language and terminology to ensure that its analytical observations are connotationally rich with interpretive implications. In part it does this by considering each observation against the backdrop of a proposed system concerning “how sonatas work.” Elements of Sonata Theory provides the music-analytical outlines of that backdrop, along with glimpses of what lies ahead in more advanced work.
