31. Movements

Kirchner: Sonata No. 2 for piano Schumann: Piano Quintet in E-flat Major, Op. 44 The use of movements in instrumental music dates back to the late 16th century, and may have its roots in dance—each shift in tempo corresponded to a different set of steps. As time passed, conventions regarding the number of movements a piece should have—three for a sonata, for example, or four for a string quartet—started to become ingrained. Later, composers started to play with these very expectations, using the audience’s assumptions to turn a piece on its head. In Beethoven’s famous Fifth Symphony, the immediate transition from the end of the third movement to the beginning of the fourth is incredibly exciting, especially if you were expecting several seconds of silence. On today’s podcast, we’ll listen to works crafted both ways, with and without discernable movements. Kirchner’s Sonata shrugs off the standard three-movement classical form, instead opting for a more fluid development of musical ideas, while Schumann’s great quintet is written in standard four-movement form, with contrasting tempos. We’d like to thank music publisher G. Schirmer again for their support in helping us to podcast the music of living composers.