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# 5.3 Interrupted structure and typical features of the style

The next extract is from the last movement of an earlier sonata, K281, in the same key, B flat major. The theme is very different in rhythm and contour from that in K333, but a look at the voice leading reveals similarities.

## Activity 16

Listen to the extract given as Example 25 (Extract 10). What similarities can you find between this theme and that of the third movement of K333 (Example 23)?

Click to listen to Extract 10

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Example 25 Mozart, Sonata in B flat, K281, third movement, bars 1–8

### Discussion

There are several features shared by this example and the previous one. Again, it clearly falls into two sections with the harmonic framework I–V ∥ I–V–I. It also has a strong sense of a linear outline in the upper voice, moving to the second degree of the scale (C) at the end of the first half and to the tonic (B♭) at the end. It is not surprising, then, that it fits the model of the interrupted structure outlined in the previous example.

Example 26 shows my analysis of the structure of these bars.

Example 26 Analysis of Example 25

## Activity 17

Compare the analytical graph in Example 26 with the score extract given as Example 25. What features can you identify in the graph which have occurred in previous examples you have studied?

### Discussion

In its local details, there are many connections between Example 26 and some of our earlier examples. For instance, the main pitches of the upper linear shape are supported in parallel tenths in the bass (bars 2 and 3); these bass supports are in turn preceded by lower neighbour notes just as they were in the example from K309 (Example 20).The way in which the bass drives towards the final cadence is also very similar: it outlines a I–Ib–iib–V–I motion, a feature also shared by the extract from K333. These similarities show just how useful voice-leading theory can be in pinpointing some of the defining aspects of Mozart's harmonic and melodic style.

While Example 26 should be quite self-explanatory after all the work you have done on analytical notation, there are two points worth lingering over.

The first is the rather strange opening, in which the tonic chord is missing. Instead of beginning with a clear-cut tonic, Mozart begins on the dominant of chord ii, moving sequentially through a cycle of fifths to reach the tonic at bar 3. Nevertheless, I have analysed the note F (the first note) as the primary tone (or head-note), beginning the structural descending line. In other words, I think that, at the middleground level of the harmony, this F belongs with the B♭ in the bass of bar 2. The technical term for this feature is elision, and this is shown by the diagonal straight line. Structurally, we would say that the primary tone belongs to the tonic chord, but that here it has been separated from its true bass support by one and a half bars. [Mozart is not the only Classical composer to perform this sort of sleight of hand; a very similar device is used, for example, by Haydn in the opening Allegro of Symphony No.94.]

The second point concerns the music in the high register at bars 2–3. You might have been tempted to think of the top B♭ as the primary tone of a large line, descending through all the notes of the scale. After all, it is the highest note of the passage and part of the tonic chord. However, a closer hearing of bar 3 proves this to be illusory. The A on the first quaver is dissonant, and therefore only an appoggiatura to the following G. In addition, this line is not repeated by the second half of the theme. There, the upper B♭ in bars 6–7 occurs as an arpeggiation, first of tonic harmony (Ib), then of a iib chord: it does not form part of a large structural line.

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OpenLearn - Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground
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