ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates sonata theory and its specific relevance for Mendelssohn's music. It establishes, through an analytical survey of sonata-type movements, precisely what can be considered normative in Mendelssohn's sonata practice, and whether this has any correlation with the acceptance or deformation of a Formenlehre model or generic scheme. An engagement with sonata theory might begin by scrutinising the controversy between 'conformational' or 'generative' conceptions of form, to invoke Mark Evan Bonds' distinction. Sonata theory's categorical framework is less flexible, defining formal procedures according to the extent to which they resemble the generic layout, and organising the results into a hierarchy of defaults. Mendelssohn's music is particularly instructive in this respect, given his well-documented relationship with Marx, his pivotal position between the generic classical sonata and emergence of Formenlehre texts, and his seminal status for deformation theory. Mendelssohn's sonata forms are documents of reception history.
