The first movement of Schubert's String Quintet, D. 956, is among the early nineteenth‐century repertoire's clearest examples of what Janet Schmalfeldt has called ‘form as the process of becoming’. In this article we show how the governing formal principle of the movement's exposition is the conflation of distinct and typically consecutive formal functions. The result is an extraordinary chain of form‐functional overlaps, requiring the analyst to engage in a process of constant retrospective reinterpretation that ends only with the unambiguous closing group. Our aim is not only to revisit some familiar analytical questions about Schubert's Quintet from a form‐functional perspective, but also to provide a test case showing the applicability of form‐functional thinking to early nineteenth‐century music. We begin by presenting a form‐functional overview and cadential plan of the exposition and then home in on three passages that pose particular analytical challenges: the introduction/main‐theme/transition complex (bars 1–59), the transition/subordinate‐theme complex (bars 60–100) and the closing‐group/subordinate theme complex (bars 100–138). The article concludes by proposing certain ways in which Schmalfeldt's idea of retrospective reinterpretation may be further refined.

James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy's Sonata Theory promotes a fundamental distinction between sonata expositions that are either two‐part or continuous. We contend that this binary opposition misconstrues the commonality of formal procedures operative in Classical sonata form. Advocating a form‐functional approach, we hold that all sonata expositions contain a subordinate theme (or at least sufficient functional elements of such a theme), even if the boundary between the transition and subordinate theme is obscured. We illustrate three categories of such a blurred boundary: (1) the transition lacks a functional ending but the subordinate theme still brings an initiating function of some kind; (2) the transition ends normally but the subordinate theme lacks a clear beginning; and (3) the transition lacks an ending and the subordinate theme lacks a beginning, thus effecting a complete fusion of these thematic functions. We extend these considerations to another formal type – minuet form – in order to place the technique of fusion as it arises in sonata‐form expositions in a broader perspective. In further comparing a theory of formal functions to Sonata Theory, we invoke the ‘sonata clock’ metaphor, first introduced by Hepokoski and Darcy, and show that our respective clocks have different ‘hour’ markers and run at different speeds. We conclude by examining some of the main conceptual differences that account for the divergent views of expositional structures offered by Sonata Theory and a theory of formal functions, arguing against the former's claim that the medial caesura is a necessary condition for the appearance of a subordinate theme.

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The precise sense of Jean Philippe Rameau's conception of supposition is among the more vexing questions that his theorizing poses. Supposition has been interpreted, on the one hand, as an account of ninth and eleventh chords and, on the other, as a means of explaining melodic suspensions. Understanding Rameau's doctrine means, in part, retracing the many refinements, revisions, and reversals that it underwent over the course of its author's career. This article accordingly reconstructs the development of supposition from the Traité de l'harmonie (1722) to the Code de musique pratique (1760), with particular attention to the extensive discussion of the topic in the "Art de la hasse fondamentale" (c. 1737-43). To a considerable degree, Rameau's conception of supposition was worked out in dialogue with his critics. Retracing that dialogue helps to clarify a number of points: First, Rameau revised his account of supposition continually. Second, the impetus for these revisions was, in many cases, the intervention of a prominent critic. Third, these critics did not, as has been claimed, misunderstand Rameau's account of supposition; rather, they disputed it (the second musicien) or extended it (Charles-Henri de Blainville and Jean-Jacques Rousseau). Fourth, the eventual form that Rameau's doctrine took was significantly influenced by these criticisms; indeed. Rameau tended to appropriate those aspects of his interlocutors' arguments that he ended up finding germane. And fifth, it emerges from this inquiry that supposition is not solely a means of accounting for melodic suspensions; it is also an attempt to explain a number of idiomatic sonorities that are endemic to French baroque music, and to the grand motet in particular.In general, this article aims to provide a more detailed and more nuanced account of supposition than has thus far been available by attending not only to Rameau's own writings but also to the writings of his early critics and to the musical repertories that were these writers' frame of reference.