UC Santa Barbara

This study traces the development of binary procedures though the first half of the eighteenth-century with a view of tracing the development of those characteristics that coalesced to form sonata form. It the culmination of a corpus study of some 800 instrumental binary works. These were analyzed in two dimensions. The first is translational symmetry, the degree to which each half resembles each other. The second is harmonic trajectory, the number and disposition of threshold cadences, those cadences that define boundaries between parts of a form. The study concludes with a meta-analysis that shows that the move from simple binary forms with few cadences to highly symmetrical binary forms with well-defined key areas is discernible but far-from-smooth process.