Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno ed. by Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Nathan John Martin

Reviewed by: Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno ed. by Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, Nathan John Martin Steven D. Mathews Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno. Edited by Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 127.) Rochester, NY: Rochester University Press, 2015. [vi, 456 p. ISBN 9781580465182. $120.] Music examples, illustrations, index. Almost two decades have passed since the publication of William E. Caplin’s seminal treatise, Classical Form, in which he proposes a theory of formal functions. Caplin defines a formal function as “the specific role played by a particular musical passage in the formal organization of a work” (Caplin, Classical Form: A Theory of Formal Functions for the Instrumental Music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven [New York: Oxford University Press, 1998], 254). However, as disclosed by Janet Schmalfeldt in the special afterword of Formal Functions in Perspective: Essays on Musical Form from Haydn to Adorno (hereafter, FFP), Caplin had been involved in spirited discussions about formal functions with Schmalfeldt, his colleague at McGill University, since the late 1970s, when he translated a treatise on musical form by Arnold Schoenberg’s student, Erwin Ratz (p. 435). The positive impact of Caplin’s subsequent work—including the articles that led to the publication of Classical Form, the treatise itself, and its pedagogically-oriented update (Caplin, Analyzing Classical Form: An Approach for the Classroom [New York: Oxford University Press, 2013])—persists in music theory classrooms and conferences across North America and Europe by his numerous students, colleagues, and peers, which gives great cause for Steven Vande Moortele, Julie Pedneault-Deslauriers, and Nathan John Martin to edit a festschrift of thirteen essays in Caplin’s honor. In their introduction to FFP, the editors begin with a simple fact: “Few writers have contributed as much to the revival of Formenlehre in current English-language music theory as William E. Caplin” (p. 1). Yet, they also recognize the intentional constraints of Caplin’s “idiom-specific” theory of formal functions (i.e., the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven ca. 1780–1810): “The theory’s very richness—its fine-grained delimitation of the classical style—entails a corresponding loss of generality” (p. 4). Consequently, scholars have started to examine the works of other composers outside of the late-eighteenth-century Viennese masters and test the theory’s versatility. One goal of FFP is to offer essays that “open up new analytical and theoretical vistas while continuing to engage with the basic themes and commitments of Caplin’s work” (ibid.). Grouped into six parts (i.e., five groups of two and one group of three), the thirteen essays in FFP do not follow each other in a tight chronology of works or theorists (as may be implied by the subtitle, which captures the subjects of the first and final chapters, respectively). Instead, I find it equally useful to group these essays by their general analytical considerations and musical objects to comprehend the potential of [End Page 536] expanding Caplin’s ideas into other repertoires. Seven essays analyze a set of works by one composer to discover something new about the composer’s style: four essays focus on instrumental music and three essays analyze opera and song forms. Two other essays stand out for their primary focus on shared genres between multiple composers (e.g., one considers a cornucopia of nineteenth-century piano concertos by Field, Dussek, Hummel, Moscheles, Chopin, Cramer, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Liszt). Three more essays relate via their intense analysis of only a single piece or movement. However, Vande Moortele’s essay in chapter 13, “The Philosopher as Theorist: Adorno’s materiale Formenlehre,” stands apart from the other twelve as it transmits a history of Theodor Adorno’s part/whole approach to the analysis of musical form in Mahler, Schoenberg, and Beethoven and offers similarities between Adorno’s theory and the works of both Caplin and Schmalfeldt. Despite this alternative grouping, the individual essays remain unique in their methodologies and specific goals, which I will focus on in the following sequential review before proceeding to a few general comments. The composers...

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