A brief survey of the classical repertoire reveals that the theme types we have explored over the last few weeks were of great importance to eighteenth- and nineteenth- century composers. The sentence -- an engine of breathless drive -- and the period -- an embodiment of balance and proportion -- both served to express a particular set of expressive goals. Despite the regularity with which these two theme types appear, however, it is naïve to think that composers restricted themselves to such a simple set of form-to-expression mappings.

In the 1990s, music theorist William E Caplin made an important discovery...

ANDREW SCHARTMANN'S MUSICAL TIDBITS

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

MITSUKO UCHIDA