Rondo
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Main Period: Baroque

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Rameau


Purcell


Haydn


Mozart


Beethoven
The dance to the music of time (1640) Nicolas Poussin, Wallace Collection, London
Rondo
An instrumental form based on a repeating section, but between every appearance of this section, a new composition is deployed. Therefore, it can be described as a strophic form or an a-b-a-c-a... structure. The source of its name is an ancient French dance. The rondo form is one of the most widely accepted forms in music, since it combines the reprise of a known section with the diversity and novelty of new parts that keep coming. Thus it is used in works by Rameau, Couperin and other. A famous rondo is the one in Purcell's drama "Abdelazer".
Among composers of the classic era, such as Haydn, MozartRondo alla Turca from Sonata No.11 in A, K.331 - Mozart and Beethoven, it evolved into a form called "rondo-sonata" which is a combination of the rondo principle with the sonata (simply, it is a sonata with an additional appearance of section 'A' before the development unit). The structure of this form is a-b-a-c-a-b-a.
Note that many works are not titled "rondo", yet they are built as one. For example, different mazurkas, bagatelles, waltzes and impromptus were written in the rondo structure.
One must not confuse this with the medieval rondeau, a polyphonic song that lacked the structure that characterised the rondo since the 17th century.


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Notes from Purcell's rondo from Abdelazer
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