Sonata theory

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Sonata Theory is an approach to the description of sonata form in terms of individual works' treatment of generic expectations. For example, it is normative for the secondary theme of a minor-mode sonata to be in either the key of III or v. If a composer chooses to break this norm in a given piece, that is a deviation that requires analytical and interpretive explanation.^[1] The essentials of the theory are presented by its developers, James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy, in the book Elements of Sonata Theory,^[2] which won the Society for Music Theory's Wallace Berry Award in 2008.^[3] Although the theory is particularly designed to treat late-eighteenth-century works such as those by Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven, many of its principles are applicable to works in sonata form from later centuries.