imperialist, and that ‘tonality itself – with its process of instilling expectations and
subsequently withholding promised fulfilment until climax – is the principal musical
means during the period from 1600 to 1900 for arousing and channelling desire.’ She
analyses the sonata procedure for its constructions of gender and sexual identity. The
primary, once ‘masculine’, key (or first subject group) represents the Other: female,
foreigner, difference, a territory to be explored and conquered, assimilated into the self
and stated in the tonic home key. This reading is based on the work of Lacan and Derrida.
Romantic sonata
In the early nineteenth century conservatories of music were established, leading to a
codification by critics, theorists and professors, of the practice of the classical period. In
this setting the current use of the term ‘sonata’ was established, both as regards form and
also in the sense that a fully elaborated sonata serves as a norm for concert music in
general. Carl Czerny declared that he had invented the idea of sonata form and music
theorists began to write of the sonata as an ideal in music. From this point forward the
word ‘sonata’ in music theory labels the abstract musical form as much as particular
works, in other words, the sonata idea or the sonata principle.
Among piano works labelled ‘sonata’ some of the most famous were composed in the
romantic period: Chopin’s B flat minor and B minor sonatas, Schumann’s three sonatas,
Brahms’s three sonatas and Liszt’s Sonata. Rachmaninoff’s B flat minor sonata belongs
to the late romantic period and like others of his compositions to some extent combines
the European tradition with elements of the jazz idiom.
STAVENHAGEN
Bernhard Stavenhagen (1862-1914) was one of Liszt’s last pupils, and his secretary and
assistant for a time. He was born in Greiz in Vogtland, Germany, on 24 November 1862
and died in Geneva, Switzerland, on 25 December 1914.
He commenced piano study in 1868 and his family moved to Berlin in 1874 where he
began studying with Theodore Kullak and entered university there in 1878. He studied
composition with Friedrich Kiel at the Meisterschule and with Rudorff at the Hochschule,
Berlin, and won the Mendelssohn prize for piano.
He was a pupil and amanuensis of Liszt in 1885-86. He was court pianist to the Grand
Duke of Saxe-Weimar in 1890, and in 1892 was made a Knight of the White Falcon
Order. He toured Europe and the United States with success in 1894 and 1905. In 1895
he succeeded Lassen and d’Albert as court conductor at Weimar. He was court
conductor at Munich from 1901 to 1904 and was also director at the Akademie der
Tonkunst. In 1906 he gave a successful series of Volkssymphonie-Konzerte in Munich.
In 1907 he moved to Geneva where he took over the piano masterclasses at the
Conservatoire, and was the conductor of the municipal orchestra and the Société du
Chant du Conservatoire.