Musical Structure and Design

Cedric Thorpe Davie is himself a noted composer, and musical forms are as familiar to him as armatures are to the sculptor. As a result, he is able not only to describe them clearly, but also to evaluate their qualities and to point out their truly characteristic fundamentals. It is his discussions of such core questions as: What is the true basis of sonata form? And What are the qualities of a successful form that make for convincing music? that cause his book to be the unusually interesting…