ABSTRACT
We have seen that Koch’s understanding of the concerto first-movement form, though expressed in terms of alternating tuttis and solos, was measured against an underlying pattern derived from the tonal organisation of sonata form. However, it is important to remember that Koch was not actively equating concerto form and sonata form. Indeed, it would be rash to suppose that ‘sonata form’ had achieved sufficient stability in Koch’s day to serve as a ‘mould’ into which the ‘stuff of a concerto might be poured. Koch’s belief in the power of ritornello practice to articulate formally the opposition of tutti and solo groups, was absolute. But he observed, in addition, that the tonal and thematic practices that could typically be observed in sonatas of various kinds (be they actually solo sonatas, or symphonies, trios, quartets, quintets, and so forth) could also be found in contemporary concertos (and most especially in their solo sections), an understanding generally representative of late-eighteenth-century theoretical conceptions of the concerto first-movement form. 1 By contrast, nineteenth-century Formenlehre treatises tended to regard concerto first-movement form exclusively in terms of sonata form, to the neglect of its previous association with ritornello procedures. The description of concerto first-movement form given by Adolph Bernhard Marx in 1847 is typical:
The first movement, or Allegro, is arranged so that the orchestra introduces all, or at least the most important, ideas in the principal and subsidiary parts [of the first section] entirely in the tonic, or else in the tonic and dominant (or relative major), and closing back in the tonic. Now, the solo, either alone, or supported by the orchestra (or a part of it), presents in its own concertante fashion the main ideas from the [principal part of the] first section, also adding new ideas of its own, and modulates, either with or without the tutti (usually the former), to the dominant, in order to present the subsidiary and closing theme, and concludes the first part [that is, the ‘exposition’] together with the orchestra, wholly in the manner of a sonata-form movement, or else (usually), it leaves this closure to the orchestra alone. Now, the second section [‘development’] ensues, in which the the movement’s themes are worked out, mainly by alternation among the orchestral instruments against figurative passagework in the solo ... finally, the third section [‘recapitulation’] unfolds according to [the] accustomed plan [that is, sonata form]’ (Marx, 1847, p.439). 2
