| List of musical examples | p. viii |
| List of tables | p. xi |
| Preface | p. xii |
| Definitions | p. 1 |
| Sonata and canzona | p. 3 |
| Sonata and sinfonia | p. 7 |
| Sonata and concerto | p. 9 |
| Sonata and suite/partita | p. 10 |
| The sonata and free instrumental genres: toccata - ricercar - capriccio - fantasia | p. 12 |
| Summary: instrumentation, form, texture or function? | p. 15 |
| Form | p. 20 |
| The 'free' sonata in the seventeenth century | p. 20 |
| Corelli and his legacy | p. 34 |
| The sonata da chiesa | p. 36 |
| The sonata da camera | p. 41 |
| Corelli's followers in the eighteenth century | p. 47 |
| Regional traditions | p. 51 |
| Sonata cycles and 'sonata form' after 1750 | p. 53 |
| Fast movements: 'sonata form' and related categories | p. 54 |
| From dance form to sonata form | p. 55 |
| Terminology | p. 61 |
| The exposition | p. 63 |
| The development | p. 76 |
| The recapitulation | p. 82 |
| There-entry | p. 84 |
| The transition | p. 86 |
| The recapitulation as a result of events in the exposition and development | p. 87 |
| Extra options: slow introduction and coda | p. 88 |
| Sonata form - bipartite or tripartite? | p. 90 |
| Slow movements | p. 91 |
| Minuet and scherzo | p. 95 |
| Finales | p. 97 |
| Beethoven's sonatas - consummating or transcending Classical form? | p. 100 |
| Construction of themes and their elaboration | p. 103 |
| Types of theme | p. 103 |
| Thematic contrast and thematic derivation | p. 105 |
| Elaboration and transformation of themes and motives | p. 105 |
| Slow introduction and coda | p. 107 |
| Manipulations of the tonal process | p. 108 |
| Major-key recapitulation in minor-key movements | p. 108 |
| Third relations versus fifth relations | p. 110 |
| New slow-movement types | p. 111 |
| The upgrading of the dance movement | p. 113 |
| Final movements | p. 115 |
| Camouflaging the formal structure | p. 115 |
| The cycle | p. 117 |
| Sequence and combination of movements | p. 117 |
| Tonal structures | p. 119 |
| Transitions | p. 121 |
| Motivic unity and quotations | p. 122 |
| The sonata after Beethoven | p. 126 |
| Franz Schubert | p. 128 |
| Sonata composition after c. 1830 | p. 135 |
| Motivic unity - motivic derivation - developing variation | p. 140 |
| Quotation | p. 147 |
| Tonal structure | p. 149 |
| Integration on multiple levels: Schumann's Piano Sonata, Op. 11 | p. 150 |
| The amalgamation of the sonata cycle with sonata form: Franz Liszt's B minor Sonata | p. 151 |
| Sonata composition in the twentieth century | p. 157 |
| The sonata in the nineteenth-century tradition | p. 158 |
| The neo-classicist and historicist sonata | p. 163 |
| The sonata as generic 'piece for instrument(s)' | p. 165 |
| The eclectic sonata | p. 168 |
| Functions and aesthetics | p. 173 |
| Locations and occasions | p. 173 |
| Target groups: professionals, connoisseurs and amateurs | p. 177 |
| Learned style | p. 179 |
| Virtuosity | p. 182 |
| Sonata form as an aesthetic paradigm | p. 186 |
| Absolute music? On meaning and programmaticism | p. 188 |
| Scoring and texture | p. 193 |
| Developments in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries | p. 194 |
| Number of instruments | p. 194 |
| The ensemble sonata | p. 194 |
| The sonata for small ensemble | p. 195 |
| Nature and formation of the ensemble | p. 200 |
| The scoring of the bass part | p. 204 |
| Other instruments | p. 205 |
| The paradigm shift of c. 1750 | p. 208 |
| The age of the piano sonata | p. 210 |
| Beethoven, Clementi and the nineteenth century | p. 215 |
| The piano sonata in the twentieth century | p. 219 |
| Piano and others | p. 220 |
| Melody instrument with piano or piano with melody instrument? | p. 220 |
| The duo sonata in the nineteenth century as the 'anti-virtuosic' sonata | p. 225 |
| Other instruments | p. 228 |
| Developments in the twentieth century | p. 230 |
| The sonata for unaccompanied solo instrument | p. 231 |
| The organ sonata | p. 233 |
| Notes | p. 236 |
| Select bibliography | p. 243 |
| Index | p. 250 |
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