Haydn String Quartet Op. 33 No. 3—Movement Forms?

[gritts]

What are the compositional forms (eg. Sonata form, Binary Form, Ternary, etc.) of the four movements of this String Quartet? Also nicknamed the bird.

I've searched everywhere for it and am throwing up a hail mary before I have to analyze the entire thing myself.

Thanks!

[sbeckmesser]

Without actually looking at the score at all -- I don't actually know the piece -- I'm going to guess that the first movement is a sonata form, the second movement is either a sonata form or a theme and variations, the third movement is a menuet-trio form (two rounded-binary forms, one nested within the other) and the last movement would be either a sonata form, rondo form or a combination sonata-rondo form.

Now I'll go to the score and get the truth of the matter.

--Sixtus

[sbeckmesser]

So I got the movement order screwed up. The first movement is a classic sonata form with coda. There's an unusual amount of working out of motives between the first and second subjects forshadowing what happens in the development section (which is supposed to be repeated). The SECOND movement is the scherzo in minuet-trio form. The third movement behaves mostly like a theme and variations but with a hint of sonata-form development before a "recapitulation" at bar 65. The last movement is called a rondo, which it is, but with a lot of sonata-form stuff going on (such as melodic fragmentation etc.). There's a coda starting at bar 147. Hope you do well in your term paper, if that is what this is for. LOL

--Sixtus

BTW: Most of these analytical terms (especially "sonata form" itself) were invented long after Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven wrote their pieces. Attempts to shoehorn any classical-era piece into a small number of post-facto form categories is bound to turn up structural anomalies. The problem is with the categories, not with the pieces. See the following book, co-authored by one of my teaching fellows (Hepokoski) back in college, which also discusses Op33 No3:

http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Sonata-T ... 677&sr=8-1