1637- The Sonata form is one of the Forms of Orchestral Music.
In Classical Music a three movement piece of instrumental music which has turned out to be a quite successful and enduring format. In the most common format sonata (with 3 movements), the movements usually break down like this:
- 1st Movement - Fast
- 2nd Movement - Slow
- 3rd Movement - Fast
However, as koreykruse recently pointed out, there are other structures, sometimes made up of four movements.
Composers who wrote Sonatas include:
Source:
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/g_sonata.html
Updated 06.16.04