Mozart menuets and Caplin's theme types, part 2

This is a follow-up to yesterday's post that provided stats for theme types in the first strains of one early set of menuets (K. 164) and two late ones (K. 568 & 585).

Caplin's seven classes of eight-bar themes are as follows:

• c1. period 

• c2. sentence 
• 
c3. period with modulating consequent 
• 
c4. hybrid 1 (antecedent + continuation) 
• 
c5. hybrid 2 (antecedent + cadence) 
• 
c6. hybrid 3 (compound basic idea + continuation) 

• c7. hybrid 4 (compound basic idea + consequent) 


These seven classes make up his list of all the eight-bar functional units commonly found in the music of the Vienna School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven; to which we could add Schubert). Only three from all possible combinations of the four-bar units are missing:

• 1. presentation + consequent 
• 2. presentation + cadential
• 3. compound basic idea + cadential

I would designate presentation + consequent "hybrid 5" because examples do appear occasionally in dance music (as we saw in K. 164; a number of instances occur in Beethoven's dances, as well). I will add 2 & 3 to the list if I ever find any instances of them in music.

To be honest I think that for dance music those themes whose identity depends on particular harmonic shapes do not have anything like the importance that they can have for larger-scale instrumental concert music. For that reason, I would be content with just four classes:

• c1. period
• c2. sentence
• c3. antecedent + continuation
• c4. presentation + consequent

Within these, one may find variation in clarity of definition. Evaluating such differences can be useful as an interpretive tool. Here are examples from K. 164. In the trio of n2, we see the "classic" sentence design, where a basic idea is clearly repeated, though varied by transposition, and the continuation is built on fragmentation of the head-motive of the basic idea. A formula cadence then ends.

The menuet proper for n2 lies near the other extreme for the sentence: although the presentation phrase works just as it did in the trio above, the continuation introduces a new idea that holds nearly the same rhythm (without the grace note) but is otherwise strongly contrasting in character and presentation. Again a formula cadence follows.

The design of the menuet in n5 lies somewhere in between. The variation of the basic idea is more radical but is certainly still recognizable, but in the continuation we are offered something that sounds like a new idea -- observe the changed rhythm in bar 5, a small but telling moment in such confined quarters. Yet in retrospect we can recognize bars 5-6 as an informal mirror of bars 3-4. The question of such mirrors is a vexed one -- I am inclined toward viewing these as a separate class, which seems reasonable in that Caplin's theme types are grounded in melodic shapes (to which nuances of harmony are added).