Trio Sonata

Definition

Sonata

A sonata is a composition in several movements for one to eight instruments, with contrasting moods and styles. It is performed for private entertainment or for church services.

Baroque sonatas were often categorized into two types:

1.  sonata da chiesa (church sonata): written for sacred performance

2.  sonata da camera (chamber sonata): for performance at court (as private entertainment)

Trio Sonata

Trio sonata became popular after 1670s for both church and chamber sonatas.

It involves three melodic lines: two treble instruments (commonly violins, flutes, or oboes) and basso continuo (a low melodic instrument such as cello or bassoon + a keyboard instrument such as harpsichord, organ, or lute)

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Listening

Arcangelo Corelli, Trio Sonata in A Minor, Op. 3 No. 10 (1689)

The sonata consists of four short movements: fast – fast – slow – fast

All are in the same minor key, but they differ in meter, mood, and tempo. Each movement alone has only a single basic mood, as is typical in baroque instrumental music.

First Movement: Vivace

The lively opening movement is in quadruple meter and features dotted rhythms. It is played twice, each time ending with an incomplete cadence on the dominant that creates a feeling of expectancy.

 

Second Movement: Allegro

The second movement, a vigorous allegro, is fuguelike and also in quadruple meter. Fugal second movements were characteristic of baroque trio sonatas. The subject begins with a pervasive repeated-note motive.

This subject is introduced by the first violin and then is successively imitated in lower registers by the second violin and the cello (doubled by the organ). The second movement, like the first, ends with an incomplete cadence on the dominant that creates expectancy.

 

Third Movement: Adagio

The third movement is songlike and soulful, a very brief adagio in triple meter. It opens with a descending leap in the first violin that is immediately imitated a step higher by the second violin.

 

Fourth Movement: Allegro

The longest movement of this sonata is the concluding allegro, a dancelike piece inquadruple meter in which each beat is subdivided into three. This fourth movement is in two-part form, and each part is repeated: A A B B. Section B is three times longer than section A. At the end of section B, Corelli calls for the only dynamic change in the sonata: the concluding phrase is repeated more softly, like an echo.