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Classical music has various musical forms that include themes and variations, Rondo, symphony and the sonata (Adorno,2018). From refers to the arrangement of the sections within a piece of music. Theme and variations are a common type of the classical music where the entire song is based on a theme. A theme can be a group of small phrases that are added up to make a complete musical idea. A theme is presented in the beginning while the rest of the music consists of the variations of the main theme, and the variations can be identified through the change of tempo, pitch texture, tonality as well as the overall emotional expressions. During composition, a composer may choose to apply one or several manipulations. An example of theme and variation music form is that of the ‘Ah Vous dirai-je, maman’ composed by Mozart and consists of 12 variations.

Symphony is another form of Classical music (Reich,2017). The structure of the symphony has four movements. The first movement (Allegro) that is fast and in sonata form, the second movement (Adagio) is slow, the third movement (Menuetto) is dance like while the fourth movement is (Allegro) is fast. An example of the symphony is the work of Mozart, symphony number 41 in C Major. The other form of classical music is the Sonata which is a more complex version (Burnham,2017). The Sonata has several sections with each of the sections having a specific name and purpose. The first section is the exposition that introduces the themes that are often two and forms the basis of the entire movement. The second section is the development, concentrating on the themes that were presented in the first section, and the primary purpose is manipulation of the theme in several ways. The recapitulation is the third section and is a restatement of the entire exposition with the second them appearing at the pitch level of the home key rather than in a different key as for the case in exposition (Swinkin,2017). An example of the Sonata form of classical music is the work of Ludwig Van Beethoven References

Adorno, T. W. (2018). Beethoven: The philosophy of music. John Wiley & Sons.

Burnham, S. (2017). Beethoven’s Hero. In Beethoven (pp. 13-44). Routledge.

Reich, M. (2017). Subtle Irony in Personal Growth: Beethoven and Prokofiev’s” Classical” Symphonies.

Swinkin, J. (2017). About a Key: Tonal Reference in Beethoven’s Sonata-Form Works. The Journal of Musicology, 34(4), 515-558.