Composers
Bach
Handel
Schumann
Mendelssohn
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Binary forms
Forms consisting of two parts:
an opening section and a closing one. The
period
(musical thought) is divided into two short parts. The first one allegedly
asks a question (a dominant
chord providing a sense of tension) and the
second part gives an answer (a tonic
chord reliving the tension).
The binary form often uses two
longer parts. Again, the first section opens
in the Tonic key and generally modulates to a closely related key, while
the second section returns to the original key.
Most baroque
suite
movements, by Handel
and Bach,
were written as binary forms, among which are the dances allemande,
sarabande,
gavotte
and bourree.
In later ages, simple binary structure continued to be used, especially
for variations.
In the romantic
era, composers wrote in more sophistocated
forms, but even Schumann
and Mendelssohn
wrote short binary pieces for piano.
Example of binary form
Sarabande
Short binary musical sentence
Part 1
ending with tension
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Part 2þ
reliving the tension
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Xtend
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