Musicologica Olomucensia

Classical sonata cycles often end with effervescent dance-like movements. From the eighteenth century into the nineteenth, composers developed a taste for more substantial finales of serious character and reconceived the arrangement of multi-movement works altogether. This article examines a small collection of finales written at the turn of the century by Paul Wranitzky and Jan Dussek that occupy a unique position in these transformations and integrate slow movement and fast finale into an inseparable unit. The last movements of Wranitzky's String Quartets Op. 30 Nos. 2 and 5 and Dussek's Piano Sonata Op. 39 No. 1 constitute an original type of finale defined by the following features. (1) The opening suggests that a slow movement is underway. (2) A shift to a fast tempo signals an attacca transition to the finale. (3) The slow section returns. (4) The fast tempo resumes and provides closure. The formal design of these movements includes elements of rondo ­and/­or sonata and require frequent re-evaluation on the part of the listener. These movements also display resemblances in their expressive content: the slow sections feature a solemn tone provided by the hymn topic. The return of the slow section - the most striking feature of these cyclic finales - will support two interpretations: a memory from the past and a musical analogy of Schiller's cyclical journey of human growth. The comparative study of these works provides a springboard to address the varying aesthetic demands of final movements, examine the evolution of the sonata cycle, and illustrate how form and expression interact in standardized ways.

Keywords: Paul Wranitzky; Jan Dussek; finale; Formenlehre; topic theory; cyclic form; sonata; hymn