THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE OPENING IN SONATA FORM: AN ANALYTICAL STUDY OF THE FIRST MOVEMENTS FROM THREE STRING QUARTETS BY JOSEPH HAYDN (SCHENKER, AUSTRIA)

This dissertation discusses the sonata-form first movements from three string quartets in C major by Joseph Haydn: Opus 9, number 1 (Hoboken III:19, ca. 1769); Opus 20, number 2 (Hoboken III:32, 1772); and Opus 33, number 3 (Hoboken III:39, 1781). After an initial chapter which presents the premises of the study and offers a brief survey of the applicable literature, one chapter is devoted to the analysis of each of these works. Schenkerian analysis is employed, because Haydn's compositional practice and Schenker's analytical theory both derive from the traditional compositional disciplines of species counterpoint and figured bass.;Any circumstances peculiar to an opening affect the subsequent compositional process. Examples of such circumstances are the embellished repetition of the opening in Opus 9, number 1, the delayed entrance of the primary melodic tone in Opus 20, number 2, and the juxtaposition of the opening with the transposed reopening in Opus 33, number 3 (apparently creating successive structural fifths).;The three works share many structural and motivic features. For example, the primary melodic tone of each is g('2) (scale degree 5), and in each a structurally supported stepwise descent from that tone serves as the primary treble motive. The treatment of these motives and the structures supporting them, however, becomes increasingly complicated and subtle from the relatively straightforward Opus 9, number 1 through the diminutionally experimental Opus 20, number 2, to the tonally innovative Opus 33, number 3.;Contemporaneous accounts indicate that Haydn considered the beginning of a composition to be of crucial importance. Of particular analytical interest, therefore, is the opening, defined as that passage at the beginning of a tonal composition which establishes the structural point of departure (i.e., the initial interval of the fundamental background structure) and, in so doing, generates the primary motivic material of the work. (A motive is defined as a recurring series of pitches or pitch classes; the primary motives are those which are attached to the primary melodic tone and its initial bass support.).