JAVS Fall 2022

Fig. 6: Walton Viola Concerto I. mm. 46-47.

Walton would have been studying composition at Oxford shows the expectation that material would reappear in the recapitulation in the same order in which it appeared in the exposition. This is illustrated, for instance, by this diagram from A Treatise on Musical Form and General Composition, by F. A. Gore Ouseley. Another textbook, Percy Goetschius’s Lessons in Music Form , published in 1904, describes the recapitulation of the sonata-allegro form in very similar terms: This, the third Division, is, as usual, a review of the original presentation of the thematic material,—the recurrence of the Exposition. It is sometimes a nearly exact reproduction,

ecapitulation, however, comes with a cruel twist, and the most narratively charged moment of the entire movement. After the regretfully pastoral first theme and the beginning of the dreamy second theme, Walton interrupts the cycle and yanks us away from our land of dreams and back into the world of anguish, despair, and tragedy with the outburst that ended the transition (Fig. 7). Instead of closure and acceptance into his newfound aristocratic culture, there is only agony, longing, and anguish—perhaps also the anguish that accompanied the wide, unmoving chasm between him and the woman he loved.

Fig. 7: Walton Viola Concerto I. mm. 158-165.

excepting the necessary change of key in the Subordinate theme and codetta, and such modification of the transitional section as may be thereby involved. 26

Walton’s reordering of the material in the recapitulation constituted a violation of the norms of the sonata-allegro form and would have been understood as such. Modern analytical frameworks agree that the most common form for a recapitulation was to present the material of the sonata in the same order in which it was presented in the exposition: principal, transition, secondary, and closing. For a recapitulation not to do this would have been unusual, although it certainly was a device used by some composers (most notably Haydn) to make a point. 25 The Walton Concerto is another case of this phenomenon.

Goetschius cautions, however, that this is not always the case:

Sometimes, however, considerable alteration is made, at times so elaborate (especially in broader examples) that, though preserving easy recognizability, the Recapitulation assumes the appearance of a new version of the Exposition and becomes a more independent part of the design. 27

Further, a review of several textbooks on composition, form, and musical analysis common in Britain around the time

Journal of the American Viola Society / Vol. 38, No. 2, Fall 2022

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