Despite the Romantic turn within the new Formenlehre, little attention has been paid to one of the most important forms in Romantic music: the rounded binary. The continued use of the rounded binary from the Classical period through the early Romanticism is certainly well known, but the changes that the form underwent at the hands of the Romantics have not been treated systematically. This paper begins to fill this gap by examining the transformation of the rounded binary in Robert Schumann’s character pieces, works which the composer saw as advancing “new forms” instead of simply imitating old models. I argue that an important way in which Schumann reinvented the rounded binary was by treating the recapitulation as a cadence to the contrasting middle, rather than as a self-contained part of the form, and that he accomplished this primarily by writing expository/recapitulatory sections that repeat an idea which combines initiating and cadential functions (what I call a basic⇔cadential idea). The analyses distinguish between two main variants of rounded binaries: those where the recapitulation functions as a cadence to an otherwise open-ended middle section, and those where the recapitulation repeats the middle section’s cadence, effectively functioning as a cadential extension to the contrasting middle. Within the type of rounded binaries where the recapitulation follows a open-ended middle section, I draw attention to an common subtype which I call the sentence/rounded-binary hybrid. In showing Schumann’s newfound use of the recapitulation as a cadence to the middle section, this paper illustrates the transformation of the rounded binary from a modular form-type that epitomized the classical ideals of balance and clarity into a more fluid one which expressed Romantic affinity for the boundless.

Since Lippmann’s (1969) seminal study on Bellinian melodies, most theoretical discussion on lyric form—a sixteen-bar structure found in bel canto opera— suffers from two limitations. First, by adhering to alphanumeric formulations (e.g., AABA, AABC) and rigid theoretical yardsticks, scholars have pathologized many melodies that, I argue, still operate within the norm. Second, other than to explicate misbehaving examples, the relationship that binds textual and musical forms has not been as widely acknowledged as it should. Building on a line of research explored by Moreen (1975), Pagannone (1996), Hepokoski (1997), and Duke (2021), I propose that, in primo ottocento opera, text organization determines the form of its musical setting. I suggest that the semantic and syntactic structures of operatic poetry in closed forms are paired with analogous formal functions in their musical realization. This results in the thematic types that Caplin (1998) calls small binary, small ternary, and sixteen-measure sentences, as well as minuet forms. Indeed, I contend that “lyric form” should be regarded as a covering term signaling a family resemblance between these types. By correlating text organization and musical structure, I present the lyric form as a set of dramatically motivated conventions for the organization of both music and text. I analyze several excerpts from Donizetti, Bellini, and Verdi to determine typical and atypical semantic distributions in operatic texts of different lengths, and I discuss how these distributions correspond to specific theme types and forms. By incorporating Caplin’s definitions of formal functions, I unmark pieces whose structure scholars have described as unusual. This economy of forms allows us to focus on other important aspects of these themes, like their nuanced elements of musical expressivity and the specifically Italian contributions that, as Lawrence (2020) suggests, would help us “properly understand the formal structures of… Chopin, Wagner, or Liszt.”

Recent theoretical studies of post-classical form have either broadened or refined paradigms of the new formenlehre—particularly, William Caplin’s formal functions (Caplin 1998, 2013). Several scholarly alterations to Caplin’s classical form include expanding theme type nomenclature (Richards 2016) and applying the theory to nineteenth and twentieth-century composers (Rodgers 2014, Pedneault-Deslauriers et al 2015, Vande Moortele 2017, Russell 2020). Furthermore, analyzing form in these centuries requires revising classical syntax to account for chromatic and modal harmony (Johnston 2014, Heetderks 2011, 2015), complicated by the general twentieth-century trend towards individualized cadential norms (Eng 2019). Composers analyzed in this milieu include Prokofiev, Milhaud, Poulenc, Copland, and Bartók.

One composer whose use of large- and small-scale form remains relatively understudied is Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943). Particularly, his penchant for juxtaposed common-practice harmonic devices with equal-interval and modal idioms has been identified as a significant formal marker (Johnston 2014, Bakulina 2015). Analyzing form in Rachmaninoff’s preludes and etudes-tableaux—solo piano genres—layers the complexity, given those genres’ historical breadth.

In this paper I propose form-functional adaptations to Rachmaninoff’s complete preludes op. 23 and 32 and the etudes-tableaux op. 33 and 39, using several individual pieces as case studies. I argue that these works collectively show a fusion of form-functional norms from the small and large ternary, complicated by basic idea ambiguity, developmental melodic-motivic material, and modal/equal-interval harmonic idioms. First, I explore the large/small ternary distinction, basic idea/compound basic idea labels, and cadential specificity in the preludes op. 23 nos. 1 and 2, two highly contrasted early works. I then show how a modal and developmental basic idea provides explanatory power in a prelude with a particularly digressive contrasting middle (op. 32 no. 4). Additionally, I argue that the one piece in the corpus that does not recapitulate melodic material may still be analyzed as ternary when one considers the harmony (op. 33 no. 3). Finally, I demonstrate how a modal interpolation in op. 39 no. 7’s exposition protrudes from Rachmaninoff’s form-functional norms and provides intriguing clues to the etude’s tableau programmaticism.